June 07, 2002
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:We'll Tax You if You Make Fun of Us
The Museum of Sex has been denied non-profit status by the New York State Board of Regents.
It appears to be a serious enterprise:
Mr. Gluck, 34, who made money from a software company he sold, said the inaugural exhibition would be titled "NYC Sex: How New York City Transformed Sex in America." It will start off with a look at the murder of Helen Jewett, a prostitute who was axed to death in the 1830's, said to be the city's first sex scandal. There will be displays about prostitution and obscenity laws as well as ones about the AIDS crisis and the transformation of Times Square.
But others didn't cotton to it:
Mr. Gluck said he originally wanted the Museum of Sex to be a nonprofit institution, but the big cultural foundations didn't warm to the idea. What's more, the New York State Board of Regents, which oversees nonprofit cultural institutions, wouldn't accept the name "Museum of Sex." The board suggested that the word museum could not be used in a way that would make fun of the term.
I"m sure someone will read this and say government doesn't need to "subsidize" such things. I agree, but I don't view restraining oneself from taking money by force as a subsidy. This is just another reason there shouldn't be any corporate tax.
At any rate, the Board of Regents is a bunch of sticks-in-the-mud.
Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at June 7, 2002 10:47 PM | Technorati inbound linksThe Board of Regents has less power than it thinks. All Gluck needs to do is set up his nonprofit elsewhere, and set up a branch, the one with the exhibits, in New York City. The publicity generated as New York attempts to deny him the display of Museum of Sex (the real name of the nonprofit, registered in another state without the New York prudes oversight) will set up the opening of the museum to larger crowds than otherwise possible.
That's what happens when you have been legally trained: you solve problems that are presented. Whether he should open it is another issue. Whether the Regents deserve to be widely ridiculed, and emailed, and publicly humiliated whenever they appear before civic groups or elsewhere is another.
Posted by: Arnold Williams on June 9, 2002 10:23 PMComments are Closed.