On the Right - The Ayatollah Comes.(Brief Article)(Column)

To New Jersey

NEW YORK, JULY 10

Get a load of this! An epic struggle looming on the uses and abuses of political rhetoric; major contenders: Bret D. Schundler ("think of Schindler's List, then just change Shi to Shu," he says affably to the voters who have trouble with his name) vs. James E. McGreevey for governor of New Jersey. Schundler is a Republican and a Presbyterian. McGreevey is a Democrat and a Catholic. Schundler opposes abortion, McGreevey favors abortion.

On Saturday morning, newspaper readers learned that Schundler had accused McGreevy of 1) a lack of tolerance, 2) a disregard for the Catholic Church so categorical as to question the qualification of any Catholic to serve in public office, the whole of which cast McGreevey as, 3), the equivalent of the ayatollah in Iran.

Well, McGreevey was shocked by this line of argument, as also New York Times reporter David Halbfinger, who, in a story, traced the syllogisms, and the paralogisms, in this headline encounter.

Nobody disputes that the Catholic Church denounces abortion. Why? Because, in the understanding of the Church, a fetus is a human being, to be sure, unborn.

So what do we think of people who care naught for the lives (as postulated) of human beings? Why they are, Mr. Schundler has been quoted as saying, not to be distinguished from murderers, Nazis, and slave owners. Moreover, anyone who denounces a right-to-lifer as unqualified to serve in government is acting like the ayatollah and is guilty in effect of religious persecution.