Why must attacks on gays persist?

What kind of nation have we become? Why do we continue to apply Band-Aids to a troublesome wound rather than applying the right kind of medication to heal it? Why do we continue to attack the gay lifestyle instead of trying to understand it? What drives us to these ends?

By attacking Larry Craig, the senator from Idaho, for his actions in a Minneapolis airport bathroom, political pundits, pious Republican stalwarts, some Democratic critics and the mass media all have contributed to perpetuating the difficulties afflicting personal, and in most cases harmless choices we make in life.

If Larry Craig is a homosexual, so what? But if this man, in concert with mass hysteria born of hyper political and zealous religious forums vilifies homosexuality, he has become his own victim.

I personally believe that sexual choices are inbred. Who in the world would want to be gay in a society such as this? Why would one make such a decision knowing that he would be ostracized from a community that he direly needs for his mental and emotional survival?

Unfortunately, this senator has crafted his own apocalypse. His apparent hypocrisy on a subject that has become a vaporous "family values" political flash point in this country is the story, not the frenzied media coverage about his gay tendencies.

James D. Cook

Streamwood