‘Outing’ of Gays

The only person who is entitled to know anything about my sexual orientation is the person who wants to share my bed. For anyone else, it is simply prurient curiosity.

Those people who spread information, whether based on knowledge or on gossip, about such intimate matters of others, either private or public persons, are guilty of the grossest invasion of privacy. Most of the persons quoted in your recent article on “outing” sounded as if they were using information for blackmail.

Why should all homosexual persons be presumed to have the same goals? Can’t there be liberals, conservatives and in-betweens? The activists are saying that they speak for all homosexuals, and I seriously doubt that. Whatever it is, homosexuality is not a political philosophy with party discipline.

Those who try to justify their mean actions by saying that the victim is not doing enough about AIDS are reinforcing a public misconception that AIDS is a “gay disease.” For years, intelligent people have been trying to educate the public that anyone can become a person with AIDS.

It would be a wonderful era if all prejudices were eliminated, but that day has not yet arrived, and homophobia is still rampant. What possible justification can there be for exposing a person to the opprobrium of gay-bashers simply because you judge them not to be meeting your standards?

RAY BRACY

Tustin