Thanks to Dr. Laura, the Mailbag Runs Over

The response was overwhelmingly negative--and mostly irate--to my Wednesday column about protests over Paramount’s plans for a syndicated TV talk show headed by radio call-in star Laura Schlessinger, whose homophobic comments on the air have been widely savaged by gays and others.

I wrote that protesters had every right to demand that Dr. Laura--as the advice-giving physiologist anoints herself--not get a TV show because of her remarks about homosexuals, but that doing so seemed somehow “unsavory” and “abortive.” I predicted that, at some point, she would impale herself on her own rhetoric on TV as she had on radio, and that it was the American way to let others have their say--however repugnant--on the publicly owned airwaves. I added, so “get over it.”

Nearly all of the rebuttals advocated depositing Dr. Laura in a sewage pit somewhere, with me joining her. I’ve included no letters directly supporting me (hardly any came in) because the media too often get the last word. I feel compelled to address one question, however, because it surfaced in so many of the critical responses. As one man asked, noting I’m Jewish: “If you substitute the word ‘Jew,’ for the word ‘gay,’ would you feel that she should still be able to exercise her ‘freedom of speech’?”

The answer is yes.

As the proud father of a fine young man who happens to be gay, I see that you, as so many do, cannot understand why we will not tolerate any more bashing of ones we love. Dr. Laura does violence to a large segment of our fellow citizens as surely as though she shoved the head of a scared gay kid in a school toilet or helped gang up on a gay man or woman in an alley on a dark night.

It does seem that bashing gays is the last socially acceptable bigoted thing to do . . . and with your lighthearted words you joined the lynch mob.

RC HERVEY

Santa Margarita

If we were merely talking about some boorish bigot like John Rocker, who is really his own worst enemy, I would toss my placards in the trash can. But Dr. Laura holds a powerful pulpit which allows her to spew bigotry and expose such views to millions of impressionable people who, unconsciously or otherwise, mold their own opinions about gays in Dr. Laura’s distorted image.

I’ve had beer bottles thrown at me, and I’ve twice been a victim of gay bashings that came close to killing me. The Holocaust didn’t happen in a vacuum. It started with people treating other people as if they were subhuman, and, with just the right (or wrong) combination of factors, impressionable thugs like those who murdered Matthew Shephard and cracked open my skull were encouraged and provided with the tacit approval to do utterly monstrous things to other human beings.

RON HARDCASTLE

Los Angeles

As an older (formerly) politically active gay man, I have learned how necessary it is to know what the Schlessingers of this world think, and WHERE THEY ARE. Better that she is public and known than stewing in some secret right-wing militia enclave. Besides, every ignorance she expresses has been said many times before. She betrays herself by her own ignorance and is more pathetic than a threat.

RICHARD MAIN

Los Angeles

Thank you so much for the lesson on free speech. It feels much better when a journalist tells me to “Get over it,” after I have been called a biological error and a pedophile. I’ll just crawl back into the closet and peek through the crack at Laura on TV.

Taxation without representation? Get over it. Civil rights? Get over it. Women’s vote? Get over it. It solves so many problems.

DON BRADFORD

Santa Monica

I am the proud mother of three cherished children, one of whom happens to be gay. I also speak in schools, temples, churches, wherever they will invite us, to speak on the damage and dangers of homophobia. When I am in the schools, what I see is--as if it were the 1950s--not our enlightened new millennium. I see children who are isolated, fearful, suicidal and feeling very, very vulnerable. Oftentimes, they feel they are the “only one.”

Needless to say, they are not necessarily able to be open and out. I see this same fear in adults who are trying to come to terms with their orientation. The cruel and vicious words that Laura Schlessinger so righteously spews out are heard by not only these vulnerable folks, but by those who love and care about them. I really am “over it” about having parents having to feel shame or embarrassment about having a child who is gay, and am really “over it” having gay children and adults feel there is something wrong with them.

LYNETTE SPERBER

Studio City

Let [her] show her true colors. It’s the American way of exposure. Put Dr. Laura on TV for six weeks; I bet she won’t last that long. TV has a funny way of cutting right to the bone when it comes to holier-than-thou types who want to tell us all how we should or should not be conducting our lives.

SUSAN SESSIONS

Tujunga

Rosenberg implies that all constraints are unhealthy, and such a view is really untenable. For example, if he feels that any laws against child pornography are an improper constraint on free speech, he should say so, and see just how unconvincing his argument becomes.

I.L. SELK

Los Angeles

I live and work in Sumatra, Indonesia, coming home from time to time just to see the real world. I was home listening about all the wackos and reading about it in a humorous tone. I laughed and laughed.

SALLY ULMAN

Sumatra, Indonesia

Rosenberg whimsically states that Jenny Jones fronts the only daytime show that can boast of a fatality. Is that supposed to be funny? Does he really think this is something that Jenny Jones and her staff want to boast about? Like other Schlessinger supporters, he obviously feels that it is OK to make light of a young gay man being brutally murdered by homophobia--views to be further perpetuated by the new show in question. Perhaps he thinks society is better off. Let’s all have a big laugh--chuckle, chuckle.

MICK BROWN

Los Feliz

You write that many gays take it “personally when she declared on the air that they are deviants” and “biological errors.” And just how the hell are you supposed to take a comment like that? I’m gay. And I’m Jewish. If someone says on TV that I am deviant because of religious background, why wouldn’t I take it personally?

TODD GILLMAN

Los Angeles

Ultimately, what your column seemed to be saying was that it’s all right to not question Dr. Laura’s right to free speech by targeting her show’s advertiser and the parent network, because it’s her right to manufacture statistics, conjure up hateful rhetoric and muddy the waters of clarity by implying more expertise than she has earned to further her own ill-informed agenda because, after all, only the gays are upset about it.

“Get over it,” you say. If she were attacking African Americans, women, Latin Americans, etc., would you be giving her such a free reign? And isn’t Rosenberg a Jewish name? Oh, that’s right. She claims to be Jewish. So you’re safe.

JONATHAN HARRIS

Los Angeles

The television airwaves are not totally free. There are community standards. Pornography, incitement to riot, lewd speech and the defamation of minority groups are usually scrutinized, bleeped or not shown. This is why we don’t see “The David Duke Show.” This is why “Deep Throat” is not shown. It is criminal that gays and lesbians are allowed to be defamed. Afro-Americans wouldn’t stand for it. Jews wouldn’t stand for it. Gays and lesbians shouldn’t stand for it either.

RICHARD FORBES

Warwick, R.I.

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Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He can be contacted by e-mail at calendar.letters@latimes.com.