By Dwayne Bell

Beauty haters who attack pornography are really out to get rid of nudity. Those who attack nudity are really after beauty. Those after beauty are really out to destroy values, including Justice. I have said this many times. And now we have yet another instance of proof.

Attorney general Ashcroft has proposed to cover with a curtain a traditional statue of Themis, the Greek goddess of Justice, which has traditionally stood behind U.S. Attorneys General during press conferences. Themis is traditionally depicted with one breast exposed.

Notice that it is not just the exposed breast Ashcroft wants to cover, but the entire statue. With one foul swoop, the Attorney General of the United States is closing the curtain, not only symbolically on the value of justice, but literally on the years the statue has been upheld and admired as pure, noble, and good. He is also striking a blow against women. By covering Themis' one exposed breast, he is making the symbolic announcement that nudity is always sexual and that sex is always bad and shameful. Not good.

The proper response would have been to say that he is proud to stand under such a pure and uncensored symbol of American Beauty, Freedom and Justice. Instead he is implying that is ashamed of them.

He is also probably afraid of offending Muslims. If this is true he should at least be honest about it and have the statue covered in burqa. Burqa is the traditional potato sack that women in Afghanistan were forced to wear in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban, a restriction that led to their freedoms and their lives being stripped mercilessly from them.

I picture a political cartoon featuring Ashcroft speaking to the press with the statue behind him covered in burqa, and him saying: "As a sworn servant of the United States Justice Department I promise you that I will never allow the kind of prejudices and injustices against women we have witnessed in Afghanistan and other fundamentalist Islamic countries touch us here in America. Never!"

With the disappearance of Justice in the American Justice Department, Ashcroft is closing the curtain on 2000 years of beauty and civilization. The backlash against women and their beauty continues. (Read more about this backlash here.)

Click here to see the statue.

Click here to read more about the symbolism of Themis.