President Bush called the work "disgraceful" and Bob Dole expressed: "Now, I don't know much about art, but I know desecration when I see it".
Is that desecration what the holiday is about?
According to a spokeswoman for the theater, people yelled, "Stop the desecration of opera," and "I didn't pay money for this," as well as vulgar epithets.
Daly, having negotiated that there should be no guns present, was outraged: "If I did not take the most serious view of this situation, when several hundred people who, by some stretch of their own imagination, profess themselves to be Christians applaud and cheer an act of desecration of this nature, I would be failing in my responsibility".
When I hear the pop fans crying about the desecration of their favorite works, I must confess to the sin of schadenfreude.
I say further desecration because that unique interior space, previously awarded landmark status, has already been cavalierly and disastrously compromised by the removal of two of its key elements: Harry Bertoia's great sculptural dividing wall on the mezzanine level and the construction he created to be hung strategically at the top of the escalator.
Such flag-waving for personal and corporate profit has gotten so out of hand that last month, when the House of Representatives passed a constitutional amendment banning flag desecration for the umpteenth time, I for once found myself rooting for the Senate to follow suit.
Others are waiting for the falling crane and the wrecking ball in what Bloomberg views as progress and I view as desecration.
"I can understand to a certain degree why a cemetery would be concerned about safety issues and desecration by those protesting, but I think there is a way to do this".
"I was jailed for desecration of a national emblem," she says proudly, "tearing the French flag on 14 July".
