POLITICALLY INCORRECT

I read Allan Temko’s review of the Philip Johnson biography by Franz Schulze (Dec. 25) with a good deal of discomfort. How did Johnson’s homosexuality “complicate” his political and artistic attitudes? The matter is raised but left unexplained. Instead, there is something in the reviewer’s handling of Johnson’s homosexuality that verges on castigation and exploitation.

Though PC mentality is often overbearing, I wonder if a discussion of a person’s race or religion or sexuality does not require a degree of sensitivity about the words used to describe such characteristics. What, exactly, is Temko’s purpose in using the term “unashamed homosexuality” when referring to Johnson’s openness about his orientation? The word “acknowledged” might have been far less judgment-bound; since to be “unashamed” clearly implies that some kind of “shame” is involved in a sexual orientation which is, unquestionably, shameless.

The reviewer also suggests that there is something shameful that Johnson had 4 lovers in his 90 years. How many lovers has the reviewer had in his far fewer years? And what difference does it make?

It seems to me that if Philip Johnson’s sexual orientation is to be made an issue in Temko’s review, then perhaps he should have written something substantive about how that orientation impacted Johnson’s life and work, instead of simply being coy about what went on in the Johnson bedroom.

JAMAKE HIGHWATER, LOS ANGELES