A controversial Swedish exhibition of photographs depicting Christ in the company of gay men has been banned, and then un-banned, by the authorities of the European Parliament.
Organisers of the exhibition of the work of the lesbian Christian artist, Elisabeth Ohlsson, had planned to put it on in Strasbourg for the plenary session of the parliament next week, but received a letter from the authorities last week withholding permission.
Following burgeoning press interest in the issue, the decision appeared to have been reversed yesterday.
Ms Ohlsson's work was prepared for exhibition in last summer's gay festival in Stockholm. Controversy had been ignited, however, when the artist was invited to exhibit by the established church in Uppsala. The show has since travelled widely in Europe.
Her art is very far from the sexually explicit work of Robert Mapplethorpe. Ms Ohlsson simply depicts gay people in Biblical settings, and organisers had already agreed to remove the one picture of a naked man from the display planned for Strasbourg.
The picture in question, a tribute to friends of the artist who died of AIDS, consists of a naked man held around the waist by a friend, and with a dove on his shoulder.
In another, two women dressed in white sit on a bed while the Angel Gabriel descends from the sky with a test tube in his hand; a contribution, the artist says, to the debate on the right of lesbians to foster children.
Sources say the original decision to ban the exhibition stemmed from a request from the office of the President of the Parliament, Mr Jose Maria Gil Robles, a Spanish Christian Democrat, to the MEP responsible for cultural activities, a Socialist Finn, Mr Pertti Paasio.
Mr Paasio, elected by fellow MEPs as one of the Quaestors who administer the parliament's affairs, originally ruled that the exhibition could not go ahead because it would "create considerable offence to members, staff and visitors", but yesterday changed his mind and said it could.
Mr Gil Robles' office would not comment except to say that a final decision might well be made by the parliament's governing bureau which brings together political group leaders.
The Irish Green MEP, Ms Patricia McKenna, expressed concern at what she said appeared to have been a crude attempt at censorship.
