(CNSNews.com) - The president of a Virginia college who removed a historical cross from the school's chapel to make it more welcoming is taking flak for allowing the performance of a risqu_ show and justifying it by invoking the need to "avoid censorship."

The "Sex Workers' Art Show," a performance by people linked to the "sex industry" showing the "art" in their work, came to the College of William and Mary earlier this month as part of a nationwide tour. The show was held on campus, but not in the chapel.

The show is described as "an eye-popping evening of visual and performance art created by people in the sex industry to dispel the myth that they are anything short of artists, innovators, and geniuses."

When college President Gene Nichol was confronted by students and alumni over his decision to allow the show, he was quoted as saying, "I don't like this kind of show, but it is not the practice ... of universities to censor or cancel performances because they are controversial."

But critics of Nichol's decision late last year to remove from the university's Wren Chapel a cross that had been located there since 1940 called his latest stance hypocritical.

Nichol had said removing the cross would make the building - which is used for a range of events - more inviting to people of all faiths, implying that the Christian symbol was controversial as it offended non-Christians.

"While William and Mary President Gene Nichol opposes the display of a cross in Wren chapel, he apparently is not offended by a display of campus cross-dressers," the American Family Association (AFA) said in a statement.

AFA Director of special projects Randy Sharp called the stance ironic.

"He wants to censor anything of the Christian persuasion, because it might be offensive to some," Sharp told Cybercast News Service. "Yet he will offend the entire nation by allowing prostitutes to come into his university and demonstrate various sex acts and techniques associated with prostitution, an illegal act."

Sharp accused Nichol of demonstrating "a clear cut example of anti-Christian bigotry and intolerance."

"The buck stops at his desk. He is the ultimate authority for what happens at that college," Sharp added. "But he's wearing a double standard, [saying] that he doesn't want to promote censorship, but ... he doesn't have a problem with censoring Christianity."

Director of University Relations Michael Connelly told Cybercast News Service Thursday it was not within Nichol's power to disallow the performance.

"This particular show was financed by student fees, selected by students, paid for by student organizations," Connelly said.

"Once the students selected the art show to be performed on campus, our legal opinions make it clear that the president was not in a position to be able to stop the show or he could be in clear violation of the First Amendment," he added.

Connelly said two of the students who set up the Save the Wren Cross campaign on campus were also school senators and had voted on the issue of where to spend the student fees.

"Why did the co-founders of the Save the Wren Cross site allow this certain program to go on using their student fees?" he asked.

"If there is hypocrisy here, it might begin with the student founders of the Save the Wren Cross site," Connelly suggested. "To use un-Christian means to promote Christianity seems to be a contradiction in terms."

Annie Oakley, the founder of the Sex Workers' Art Show, told Cybercast News Service, "There is no actual controversy at William and Mary."

"Our show there was attended by 500 people, and nearly 300 more were turned away due to lack of space. Response to the show by those who actually saw it was overwhelmingly positive," she said in an email message.

"The controversy has been created by people who have issue with the movement of the Wren Cross, who wanted something headline-grabbing to add to their cause," Oakley said. "In reality, our show and the cross are not connected at all."

Make media inquiries or request an interview about this article.



E-mail a comment or news tip to Payton Hoegh