Ban Michelangelo for being 'woke'? A Florida principal was ousted over GOAT's nude statue of David

OK, Florida. It’s time to double down and take the next logical step.

State lawmakers need to start drafting a “Don’t Say Michelangelo” bill.

Our reputation is on the line, and so we must fall in line with those three parents at the Tallahassee Classical School, who objected to a sixth-grade art history on the Renaissance to include Michelangelo’s statue of David.

It’s true that the two-story marble sculpture of David was so revered that it when it was completed in 1504, the initial plan to put it at the Florence Cathedral was scrapped, so it could be placed in the public square outside the Palazzo Vecchio, where the public could be inspired by it.

The larger-than-life statue of the young Bible character holds a small slingshot with his left hand but is mostly armed with a confident gaze that has come to symbolize, more than any other work of its time, the aspirations and hopes of the dawning era of enlightenment.

On the other hand, it has a marble penis.

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And so based on the objections from three parents, the principal of this public charter school was fired for allowing the art history lesson on the Renaissance to include the most representative art work of the Renaissance.

In a way, it’s like teaching a class on Gladys Knight but only talking about the Pips.

Making parents the art critics

The school’s board chairman Barney Bishop, whose pathway to education was being the former head of the pro-business lobbying group, the Associated Industries of Florida, put his views on the statue this way:

"We think it's beautiful but we are going to make sure the concept of parental rights is supreme in Florida and at our charter school," he told CNN.

That’s how we roll in Florida. “Parental rights” rules. Not just any parent. But the most ignorant, racist, homophobic ones. Let them be the gatekeepers for everybody.

Guide us all, Q-Anon mom.

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This has taken many forms: It has removed literature from school libraries, curtailed the teaching of Black history, and made LGBTQ pride flags suddenly too controversial for display. It has even inspired a bill to ban girls from talking about their menstrual periods before sixth grade.

Those who are most eager to ban things in school claim that a real education that stresses the classical, Western European advances in learning and art is being eroded by “woke” emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion.

But it turns out, a lot of so-called “classical” education needs to be banned too. And let’s start with Michelangelo.

His artistic bent toward painting and sculpting muscular, youthful male forms doesn’t begin and end with David. Naked or mostly naked men dominate his painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and in the “Last Judgment” fresco on the altar wall of that chapel.

The Last Judgment scene, commissioned by Pope Paul III, features more than 300 muscular figures being raised to Heaven or pulled to Hell — in one case by the testicles.

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Art historians say Michelangelo studied the male form by visiting bathhouses and steam rooms in Rome, and he was widely viewed as homosexual or bisexual.

He never married during his 88-year life, and the love of his life was a much-younger nobleman named Tommaso dei Cavalieri, who was 11 years old when Michelangelo met him.

Years later, Michelangelo wrote 30 poems to Cavalieri that spoke of his affection for the younger man. Here’s part of one:

Love takes me captive; beauty binds my soul 

Pity and mercy with their gentle eyes 

Wake in my heart a hope that cannot cheat    

Oh, no. Michelangelo was “woke.” Ban him.

We can’t have classical education marred by unapologetic woke-ness from one of the exemplars of that education.

Don’t Say Michelangelo.

Frank Cerabino is a columnist at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at fcerabino@gannett.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: 'Don't say Michelangelo' Florida principal loses job over David statue