Coming Out

To the Editors:

Call them homosexuals, call them gays [April 23], call them anything you wish. Here in Anita Bryant country we call them queers, and that's what they are.

Dee Keeton

Kingston, Okla.

If I had encountered such objective writing years ago it would have made my inevitable coming out much easier.

Greg Kucera

Seattle

Why has such a pleasant, happy, descriptive word as gay become a synonym for sex and perversion?

Wesley W. Wertz

San Diego

If God had wanted homosexuality to exist, there would have been Adam and Adam or Eve and Eve, but not Adam and Eve.

Geoffrey L. Baer

Oswego, N. Y.

A disgusting, frightening story. Homosexuality and decadence led to the destruction of Rome. I foresee a dark future for your country.

Gunther Haug

Saarbruecken, West Germany

"How Gay Is Gay?" is not the question. It is: Are we as a society going to come to terms in an open-minded, accepting and loving way with the natural diversity of human sexual behavior?

David Karnes

Cambridge, Mass.

The Bible spells homosexuality with three letters: sin.

Arlena Hasel

Cincinnati

Our appreciation to you for covering America's changing attitudes toward homosexuality, and particularly for sharing with your readers Masters and Johnson's insights on "lessons in lovemaking" that heterosexuals may learn from lesbians and gay men.

C.F. Brydon and Jean O'Leary

Co-Executive Directors, National Gay

Task Force, New York City

The cobwebs of grave sin and mental disorder are beginning to clear. Gays and straights now finally realize that closets are for clothes.

Jim Connolly

Havertown, Pa.

Homosexuals have been called freaks for centuries. Isn't it time to do an article on the queer habits of hypocritical heterosexuals? Incest, cheating husbands and wives, child abuse, mate-swapping parties.

R. T. Spangler

Cambridge, Mass.

As the human race descends into the pit of immorality, your articles can only grease the cables.

(Mrs.) Foncell Powell

Arlington, Texas

You misinterpreted Kinsey. He did not define a homosexual "as anyone who has had more than six sexual experiences with a member of the same gender." Kinsey devised a scale from 0 to 6 to place men on a "heterosexual-homosexual rating scale." Most people are found between these extremes.

Patrick Suraci

New York City

The Pope and Priests

I disagree with Pope John Paul II's insistence on celibate priests [April 23]. The crisis in the church today is not due to the "weakness" of "individual priests," but rather to the strength of their vision: that the church should be more reconciling than condemnatory.

Edward C. Sellner

South Bend, Ind.

The Pope's opposition to "optional" celibacy demonstrates his commitment to the preservation of the visible church. Now stripped of many of its traditional supports, the church is not likely to withstand much more liberalization. For good or bad, its only hope for survival is unflinching authoritarianism. A religious system that does not dictate certain types of behavior and forbid others has little reason for continuing to exist.

G.L. Smith

Mayetta, Kans.

Remembering 'Nam

As a former Marine grunt, member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and now a political activist, I was pleased with both Coming Home and The Deer Hunter [April 23]. There are many subtle lessons in our Asian experience, and it is my fervent hope that the generation now coming of age will be exposed to all of the views concerning it.

Jake Brisbin Jr.

San Antonio

Americans are hung up on success. Now, after losing our first war, we say that losers must be wrong--hence our continued tendency to wallow in guilt. The humbling Viet Nam experience might be the lesson that teaches it is possible to lose, as we did, and at the same time be the good guys, as we were.

Thomas M. Kando

University Park, Pa.

George Orwell said of the English that they remember only their military disasters and defeats; the same is true of Americans. Think of Valley Forge, the burning of Washington, the Alamo, Custer's Last Stand and Pearl Harbor. America is not going to "forget" Viet Nam.

Mark Thrasher

Burbank, Calif.

Black and White

As one of the demonstrating students in your photo of the racial unrest at Cornell University in April 1969 [April 16], I was disappointed that you made no effort to explain the fundamental reasons why those troubled events occurred.

For most of us at Cornell, our campaign for black studies was not negative, bitter or antiwhite in any way, but many white faculty were dismayed by these demands; to them such studies were not even a legitimate academic topic. When the most emotional black students and the most emotional faculty began to dominate debate in their respective circles, violent confrontation became unavoidable.

All participants in this sad affair were losers. We failed to demonstrate that temperate, reasonable and ethical people of different races can work together to overcome historical wrongs and animosities, and unite in common pursuit of a just society.

Thomas W. Jones

Boston

On the Road with Bwana Brown

Hooray! Let's hear it for the safariing Jerry Brown [April 23], who doesn't sneak around in his private life or feel that any political decision once made is irrevocable. What a historic achievement it would be to have a self-made woman like Linda Ronstadt presiding over the White House.

Andrea Mackiewicz

Abington, Mass.

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