Gay Writes

The lead item in Morning Report March 7 referred to artist David Hockney as an “acknowledged homosexual.”

Does your staff not edit these items at all, or do they simply not know that we refer to ourselves as openly gay?

Openly because we ourselves say who we are (who acknowledged Hockney as a homosexual ?) and gay because that is how we, and not the non-gay community, define ourselves.

Homosexual can and should only be used to indicate same-sex sexual activity. Being gay has nothing to do with our choice of sex partners and everything to do with our way of seeing and experiencing the world. To call us homosexual implies that we are only different from non-gays in our sexual activities, and this is untrue.

I trust that The Times will take more care in its editing in the future.

KEN JACKSON

Los Angeles