Gays

Since I am from out of your district I doubt you will ever see this but some of your staff might. I heard your remarks about gays in the military and would like to add my two cents worth. I have two points to make but first I will tell you that I have no bias toward gays as I believe that sexual preference is a matter of personal choice and further I believe there is credible evidence that there is a genetic factor involved.

My first point is that the American Public, regardless of polls, is not ready to accept the gay life and I can prove this. Every day on the soaps and often times in prime time TV you can see a man and a woman, usually not married, in bed together and most of us pay very little attention to it. Imagine, instead, two men rolling around in bed together, scantily clothed, hands roaming and open mouth kissing. What do you, or just as important, the public, think about this. While I think there is something beautiful about two men loving each other and the world can certainly use more love, I am uncomfortable when I think of the intimate activities involved in this type of love,

Second point. I started visiting chat rooms after 9/11 and made an interesting discovery. If I used a neutral sounding nick I would often get an asl from some other chatter and more often than not it would be a sexual inquiry. I started asking these people if they were gay and when they answered yes, I asked for their opinion on don’t ask, don’t tell but the way I asked about it was to say, would you be aroused if you showed with other men and the majority of the time they answered yes. If this is the case, I believe it is a legitimate reason for separate showers but none of this has been discussed. Would they consider unisex showers if the rule was no contact? Obviously not! What will happen to transvestites? Will they need three different showers?

I offer this just to point out that there is a lot more to this question than just the political implications, which is what most elected officials are concerned with. To make it personal, would you feel uncomfortable if you were showering and knew that some other person was getting sexually excited looking at you. How you answer that question might tell you more about what you think about this issue than you care to know.



Thanks for listening.



John Novick