As Seen On The Bathroom Wall

Take a look at the following picture and tell me if it offends you or not.

That is the image that is seen on a shirt that was pulled from the Nordstrom stores across the country because a woman said it "offended" her.

Story:

"PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL – A Palm City woman says an Affliction t-shirt she saw in Nordstrom is offensive. The department store chain agreed with her and removed the shirt from all of its stores.

The famous Millennium painting has striking similarities and differences to a t-shirt made by Affliction.

Judy Carbo describes the t-shirt, which shows a skeleton holding Baby Jesus, as demonic. The Millennium painting shows Mary holding Jesus.

Judy was in disbelief when she saw the shirt for sale in Nordstrom.

"As a Catholic and a Christian, it was offensive all the way around. We consider her holy," says Judy.

Judy, who is a devout Catholic, says the image on the shirt was offensive enough to say, ‘enough.’ She asked the store at the Gardens Mall to pull the shirt. They did.

Judy says, "If you were Jewish, you wouldn’t want to see a swastika on a shirt. If you were African-American, you wouldn't want to see anything desecrating you."

The Affliction brand is sold at department stores and small trendy shops. We visited several. The t-shirt was either not on shelves or sold-out. So, we brought a picture of it to find out what people thought.

Regardless of their faith, people we talked to in downtown West Palm Beach overwhelming were offended by the shirt. Here are a few statements from people we ran into:

"I would complain. I'm religious and I don't find it interesting."

"I don't like the looks of it."

"I think its more taste. The way they have the halo is offensive to me."

A group of teens did think the shirt was "cool."

In response to Judy’s complaint, Nordstrom looked at their entire Affliction selection. The chain pulled the shirt and two others – nationwide. A spokesperson for Nordstrom says, "The Company empowers its buyers and clearly someone made a bad choice. A mistake was made and fixed."

Judy does not want the shirt sold anywhere. She would also like to talk to the head of Affliction.

Affliction did not return calls for comment."

Now, I'm not exactly all for the desecration of religious symbols solely for the purpose of desecration. Art, on the other hand, is something that is very subjective. To me, the fact that you can use a religious figure like Mary and turn her into a deadhead says a lot about the freedom we have in this country to express ourselves. Personally, the image tells me that religion and faith is dying, and that faith in innocence is dead. And yes, I do believe in Christ, I do have faith in his word and in God. What I don't have faith in, however, is any one person or entity telling someone that they cannot show an image simply because it OFFENDS them.

Listen, lady, bigotry and ignorance offend me. Usually, it's kept to each individual's self, private and away from children and small animals. Sometimes though, people like this woman come out of the woodwork to demand that everyone suffer for her being offended, just for the sake of making HER feel better.

I'm sure that there are millions of people whom believe that she's right in her assumption, and there are others who agree that this shirt is as offensive as a swastika would be to a Jew. It doesn't matter that the "swastika" was an ancient Buddhist symbol long before it was raped for the evil purpose of one crazed self-hating man. Those who've chosen to enlighten themselves, however, can see differently. I, for one, would be more offended if a shirt had an image of the serial tattoos that concentration camp prisoners were forced to receive. THAT is offensive. BUT, that doesn't mean that I'd demand a store remove it from their shelves.

I hate cigarettes, beer, and tempeh. I hate Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter books. I despise Britney Spears and Paris Hilton music. But I won't demand that no one be able to make the choice of listening, reading, eating, drinking, or smoking just because it offends me. This IS America, after all, the land where your rights end where mine begin.

Our country isn't perfect, but damnit, if we keep on trying to pretend that we are, the least we can do is make sure that stupid people like this person at least help keep the facade up, instead of trying to peel it away piece by skeletal Madonna covered piece simply because she's OFFENDED.