Gay Parade Coverage

* I have a complaint regarding the photographs selected to accompany your article on the 25th annual Gay and Lesbian Pride Celebration in West Hollywood (June 26). Why must you always feature the most outrageous stereotypes in your photos of this parade? This time it was women in leather with motorcycles and a drag queen on roller skates. Anyone who attended the parade knows these are not representative of the overwhelming majority of the participants.

The gay and lesbian community is extremely diverse. Your photos do not present a true picture. I’m not saying don’t ever run any such photos, just balance them with those of the more conventional participants.

All groups have some members who fit the group stereotypes; that’s how they came to be stereotypes. There are drunken Irishmen marching in St. Patrick’s Day parades. The difference is, you don’t run pictures of them every year. How about a little balance when it comes to us?

GARY S. MEADE

Los Angeles

* In keeping with true Times coverage, you have outdone yourselves again! Reading your article, I couldn’t believe the phrase “celebrating Southern California’s homosexual community.”

Come on, guys. Move into the ‘90s! We are not a roller-skating, sequined-bikini wearing community! The June 26 Life & Style coverage of the Harley rally would have been a little more accurate. “Lawyers do it. And bankers do it. Even senators. Do what? . . . “

There were no photos of Proud Parents of Gay Children or the AIDS Bike-a-Thon members. These are the people that drive our community. Yes, our community does contain the oddities. But so does every community. They are the exception, not the rule! Yes, there is coverage of the other aspects of the community, but five or six paragraphs into the article.

I am deeply disappointed in this smear of the gay and lesbian community. I am not a victim. I am a proud gay man with many proud gay and lesbian brethren. We aren’t going away!

STAN KONOWITZ

West Hollywood

* Our sins in Los Angeles have pierced eternity. What’s next, a prostitution parade, an adultery parade? Shame will follow us. Many civilizations have disappeared because of these sins. Are we next?

God, when you visit us with your justice, have mercy on L.A.

ANTOINE Y. MANSOUR

Los Angeles

* In “Tolerance? Social Justice? Gays See Rubber Gloves” (Opinion, June 25), Suzanne Garment dismisses goals, timetables, enforcement apparatus, education and sincere efforts all as ineffective at resolving differences and bridging the gap between the gay community and others. Yet I failed to locate in the article what she does recommend as a solution. That people should “leave each other alone,” as she puts it, is a nice concept, but how does she propose achieving it?

ROSE HYLAND

Los Angeles