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
Saarbrücken, 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.