As I write from Chicago in December 2010, many of my fellow North Americans are busy debating the recent censorship of David Wojnarowicz's video A Fire in My Belly (1986-87). A few weeks ago, a religious group and conservative politicians roiled the waters by claiming that a few brief seconds of Wojnarowicz's dark montage - depicting ants crawling across a crucifix - constitute anti-Christian hate speech. The work was pulled from the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition 'Hide /Seek', a comprehensive and well-received exploration of queer portraiture. This has in turn generated intense debate about an interlocked set of topics, including the social roles of art, artists and cultural institutions; the health of US constitutional protections on free speech and separation of church and state; and the degree to which queer identity has been embraced as a fact of North American experience. And it has prompted art spaces and museums across the country to quickly organise screenings and discussions based on the belief that this work of art deserves to be experienced in full and discussed in depth, rather than sound-bit into a tool for ideological polemics.¹

Now, this debate may remain a localised one that won't deeply touch the consciousness of those Afterall readers not living in the United States. Even for readers currently enmeshed in the conversation, it seems likely that this set of events will have faded from collective consciousness by the time this issue of the journal is printed - as distant a memory as the snow that now falls outside my window. But the urgency generated around these questions seems useful to hold in mind