Readers Commend One Man’s Honesty

Hoen may become a role model for some, and I wish him well.

Early in life I learned who and what my enemies were. My older sister told me my religious father often thought of killing me during my adolescence because he suspected (correctly) I was gay.

Bertrand Russell was my role model. Even though he wasn’t gay, he knew the enemy--2,000 years of persecutions, superstition, and ignorance and hate masquerading as “love.” I had no emotional conflicts when I entered college and found out much of what I had been taught was a lie. I knew this already.

Another point, the use of the word normalcy in the article. I’m happy that heteros think what they do is normal; but homosexuals have been with us throughout history in sufficient numbers that I think we are also part of nature. I have never felt that what I was doing was not normal. To be abnormal means illness, cures and all that prejudicial stuff.

I am today 70 years old, no thanks to my father or his brand of religion.

ZANE GILSTRAP

Joshua Tree