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stays gay in a society such as ours will be for many years is not doing so just on a whim. It is not in the best interests of society in general, let alone of these young people, to make them feel they must be less than their potential allows.

Most homosexuals of either sex whom I know want a long-term relationship, the equivalent of marriage. Some have it. Many do not. One has a small group people from whom to choose when one cannot recognize most of the gays one meets, so may not find an appropriate person. If one does, everything is against stability. How many heterosexual marriages would last if, every year that the couple was together, people grew more suspicious? If there could never be the slightest expression of affection before others. If the families probably did not know, or knowing, disapproved?

These are only a few of the aspects of life which are made unnecessarily and uselessly difficult for us. There are a number of aspects of most people's lives with which other people do not agree. Homosexuals are not asking for approval, but for tolerance, for the kind of freedom that other Americans of minority beliefs are allowed.

Two years ago I would not have written this letter. Last year I would not have signed my name. This year I must ask that it not be revealed, lest my friends and my employer be upset and indeed ostracized. Things are indeed changing. I hope that too much more human sacrifice is not required before civil rights for gays are established as a matter of right, not of privilege.

Sincerely yours,


Edra Bogle