First Lady Barbara Bush

I was glad to see The Times take note of the most delicious moment of the Republican convention: the playing of a song from “La Cage aux Folles” after Barbara Bush’s address (Aug. 21). “La Cage” isn’t just gay-oriented, but celebrates precisely the sort of family the Republicans were fulminating about all week: two gay men, one of them (gasp!) a drag queen, who have been together for years and have raised a son.

Wait, it gets better. Much of the plot turns on the engagement of the (heterosexual) son to a lovely girl from a wealthy, upper-crust family, and much of the fun comes at the expense of the girl’s father, a stuffy, moralizing snob--sort of a Gallic version of Bush. The convention’s music director must have been a Democrat.

ELLEN JAFFE McCLAIN

West Hollywood