‘Barron Seeks Clemency for Cop Killer’

Councilman Charles Barron, a Democrat from Brooklyn, has shown himself to be a clown in seeking clemency for convicted cop-killer Joanne Chesimard [“Barron Seeks Clemency for Cop Killer,” Meghan Clyne, Page 1, May 26, 2005].

However, like clowns in the circus, he has his share of fans cheering him on. Chesimard, who has been hiding out in Cuba since her escape from prison, has been called the “Soul of the Black Liberation Army.” She was convicted of the murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973 and given a life sentence, but will also be charged with felony escape if she is returned to America. Chesimard should be brought back from Cuba to finish her life sentence in a maximum security prison, where she will have virtually no chance of escape and no chance of freedom for the rest of her life.

If Chesimard is brought back to America, her case would be an excellent litmus test for Democrats and liberals.

MICHAEL J. GORMAN
Whitestone, N.Y.

‘Unmistakable Message’

Like a hardy perennial, John P. Avlon can be relied on to write a column every month or so that dismisses the positions of social conservatives as so much extremist nonsense. In his column, “Unmistakable Message,” [Opinion, May 24, 2005], he takes a mocking tone regarding the protests at Loyola and Middlebury colleges to the delivery by Mayor Giuliani of their graduation speeches. I’ll leave it to someone else to defend the Middlebury students since I don’t know what their beef is, but I’d like to respond to Mr. Avlon’s caricature of the Loyola protesters as so many “right-wing absolutists.”

Every college has its radical students ready to protest any authority figure who comes to campus. Big deal. The opposition to Mr. Giuliani at Loyola, on the other hand, was a principled stand on abortion and Loyola’s role as a Catholic institution in defending the church’s opposition to abortion. Mr. Avlon’s framing of the two protests as equivalent in their moral seriousness and as evidence of “ideological intolerance” betrays his own lack of comprehension of the issue.

To state the obvious, abortion is an urgent social and moral problem. The Catholic Church’s position is that abortion is a sin in all cases because it is the termination of a life. Since Loyola is a Catholic institution, or claims to be one, it has an obligation to defend this position. One way to do this is to invite speakers to campus who share this view (even if they don’t plan to discuss it in a speech). Mr. Giuliani, while a terrific mayor and probably a wonderful man, does not believe abortion to be wrong.

What the Loyola protesters, Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore and the Cardinal Newman Society (the “right-wing group whose Web site promotes a search for heretics on Catholic college campuses,” in Mr. Avlon’s phrasing), were trying to point out is that a Catholic institution should not provide a platform for a person who is unwilling to defend the Church’s position on abortion, even one so otherwise admirable as Mr. Giuliani. Is this so hard to understand?

I always thought hypocrisy was something to be discouraged, and finally, after decades of such hypocrisy – hypocrisy that contributed to the sexual abuse scandals – the church is finally trying to clean up its act. This should be welcomed by all people of good faith, even those who are not Catholic, or even religious, or who believe that abortion should remain legal.

JOHN B. KRIEGER
Manhattan

‘De Gustibus, and All That’

James Gardner displays a fine mastery of architectural terminology in the opening of his article on architect Richard Meier’s apartment houses on Perry and Charles streets [“How Much for a World-Historic Home?” Arts & Letters, May 2, 2005].

When I was in Budapest last fall, I saw many such buildings, constructed by the Soviets after World War II – modernist, yes; but also a cruel, cold, inexpensive, and joyless response to classicism and romantic urban structures.

Though Mr. Meier is, as Mr. Gardner says, an arch-modernist, and doesn’t have “a vernacular bone in his body,” his body also seems to be lacking both the “original” bone and the “aesthetic” bone.

Buildings like those in the photograph accompanying Mr. Gardner’s article can be seen in all the boroughs of New York City. They are known as housing projects. The addition of the full-length bars mirrors the design of penitentiaries. The emperor’s buildings are not wearing new clothes; they are wearing modernist prison garb. These are Elsworth Toohey’s buildings, not Howard Roark’s.

By what standard of beauty does Mr. Gardner rhapsodize about these view-blocking towers? De gustibus, and all that, but where does Mr. Meier stand next to Wren, Gaudi, Wright, or even Mr. Gehry? He would have to be standing on a box.

Notwithstanding, I enjoy Mr. Gardner’s columns, and I’m glad he writes for The New York Sun.

STEPHEN M. JOSEPH
Manhattan

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