Save the Surfing Madonna?

In a departure from the California norm, this news article reports that efforts are being made to save religious art... specifically, unknown artists' illegal mosaic graffiti representation of Our Lady of Guadalupe riding the waves on a surfboard.

The image, which measures 10' x 10', has become a bit of a tourist attraction, but city officials acknowledge that it must go. The local mayor, James Bond (no, not that James Bond) has said, "We can’t just go around saying, ‘Well, when someone slaps up something nice, we like it and it can stay.’ Or, ‘Oh, we don’t like it, so we’ve got to take it down,’ We can’t do that with art because people always love and hate the same piece of art. So it’s a slippery slope.”

So the question becomes, should the city allow this graffiti to stand? Or what should they do?

There seem to be at least two diverse groups which argue that the surfing Madonna must go. One group argues that preserving her would be a violation of the separation between church and state. Another group argues that the image is sacrilegious. Cincinnati artist Jules Itzkoff takes a more idealistic stand when he says, “Surfing Madonna speaks for the future of graffiti art in America. The goal could be to create work that society wants to keep.”

To make the situation more interesting, the Encinitas city government has "spent thousands to hire an art conservation agency to find the best way to remove her without causing damage". (Remember: California is in a midst of a crisis where it is expected to have a budget shortfall well in excess of $10,000,000,000. For those of us who have trouble counting that many zeroes, that's ten billion dollars.)

Some of you may remember the brouhaha back in 1987 when the taxpayer-funded National Endowment of the Arts was a sponsor of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition in which a winning bit of "art work" was a photograph of a crucifix submerged in the artist's urine. Should this "art" - entitled "Piss Christ" - have been paid for by as much as one thin dime of taxpayer money?

I admit that I think this particular piece of graffiti - the surfing Madonna -  is rather beautiful. And although I'm Christian, I'm undecided if it's truly sacrilegious. But I'm interested in hearing what you think. Should Encinitas city government spend taxpayer dollars to preserve art which violates the city's ordinance against graffiti? And should our government or its agencies provide financial support to art with religious (or anti-religious) content?

What do you think?