Sri Lankan Buddhists Concerned About New Movie, "Music and Lyrics"

The February 2007 Warner Bros. film, Music and Lyrics, has created a legal and religious controversy in Sri Lanka. Colombo's Sunday Times reports that the film has offended Buddhists who have seen it because of the final scene in which film character Cora Corman (played by Haley Bennett) emerges, scantily clad, from a figure of Buddha. Sri Lanka's Secretary of Religious Affairs and Moral Uplift, P. Kodituwakku , said that currently there is no law on the books that allows the government to take action against the film, though the Cabinet has been considering new legislation that would prohibit the misuse of religious symbols. Last year, Ven. Daranagala Kusaladhamma Thera, Chief Incumbent of Sri Sambodhi Viharaya, filed a suit in the Supreme Court challenging misuse of religious symbols in another case, and, while the Court has not yet decided the case, it did order that no religious image should be used in a manner that insults a religion until its decision is handed down.