There are certain topics about which I write that inevitably trigger predictable responses. If I write, say, a defense of Israel, I know I will be called one of three or four obscenities by anti-Semites. If I write a piece bemoaning the fact that 80 percent of Jewish Americans invariably vote for left-wingers, I can expect to be vilified, not as a conservative, but as a self-hating Jew. If I write disparagingly about Obama, a certain number of readers, taking their lead from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, will condemn me as a racist, and if I write anything in opposition to same-sex marriages, I'm pilloried as a homophobe. So, naturally, when I wrote and posted "Gays and grays," it stood to reason that I'd receive some angry email. What I hadn't anticipated was that I'd receive a piece of snail mail that would contain a couple of pro-gay propaganda pieces and a third article downloaded from a gay website called "Good As You," written by someone named Jeremy Hooper, taking me to task.
The envelope had no return name or address on it, so I couldn't respond to the anonymous sender. And as the website didn't entertain comments, I will have to take this opportunity to address Mr. Hooper.
In the article, portions of my original piece were re-printed so that Hooper's gay readership would understand that I was a bad guy, even though in my article I had written, "I don't happen to think that homosexuals are bad people."
Apparently, the part that most upset Mr. Hooper was the sentence that read: "What I do find annoying about a great many homosexuals is their insistence on identifying themselves solely on the basis of their sexual activities," even though the paragraph continued, "To be fair, I have an equal intolerance with heterosexual men whose identity seems to be totally wrapped up in their sexual activities and whose conversation consists of bragging about their conquests. It just strikes me as adolescent."
My critic also quoted the following three sentences: "As for Gay Pride parades, I can hardly imagine anything goofier. What is it that they're so proud of? Is it that their sexual activity will never lead to the birth of a baby, but only, tragically, on occasion, to a dreadful disease?"
