LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Who cares?
Since I don”t happen to be gay, the opinion I express here is simply based on my observations as a heterosexual who though quite happy in a conventional marriage nonetheless wanted to make a point because I believe that what we spend our time thinking about and giving our energy to should be of concern to citizens who recognize that in these trying times we need to stay focused on the matters of greatest importance and that which affects all of us rather than to expend our precious time and resource debating things that are at the end of the day not going to have much impact in terms of improving the quality of our individual daily lives and securing a better future for America.
My father loved the song Misty as sung by Johnny Mathis. It was very romantic and he looked at my mother endearingly when it played. Neither he nor anyone else I knew at the time cared what Johnny Mathis”s sexual orientation was. He had a good voice and that”s all anyone cared about and to date now at age 78 he”s sold more than 350 million records. I suspect that most of those records were sold to straight people like my dad.
Same goes for Liberace who provided countless hours of entertainment in those days when he was on TV. What a magnificent showman and who cared what he did in his personal life? Fact is he earned two EMMYs, six gold albums, performed for President Eisenhower at the White House in both 1953 and 1955 and in the twenty year period between 1950 and 1970 was according to the Guinness Book of World Records one of the most sought after and highest paid entertainers of his time.
So what”s all the fuss about gay marriage and the like? If two people love each other, why should we care how they choose to express their devotion or sanctify their union? Moreover, haven”t our courts got better things to do than to spend their time and taxpayer dollars arguing these issues?
I”m sure we could make a list a mile long on what we”d want our government to be doing and I don”t think people”s personal business like what they do in their homes should rise to the top of that list.
Enough already.
I”m sick and tired of how both Republicans and Democrats line up and take sides on stuff like this when there”s so much work to be done and so much that isn”t being done when it comes to fixing all that”s intrinsically wrong with our country in these troubled times.
Let”s get a grip and send our priorities to Washington and let them know what we think is really important rather than have them decide what they think we should care about.
When all”s said and done, I don”t think people”s private choices when it comes to matters like this should be any of our concern and they certainly have little to do with righting our boat.
I say live and let live and let”s find more of what we might commonly agree on rather than to dwell on what separates us.
The following is a partial list of some of the more well-known people throughout history who are believed to have been gay: Socrates, Aristotle, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oscar Wilde, Herman Melville, E.M. Forester, Tennessee Williams, Hans Christian Andersen, Cole Porter, Leonard Bernstein, James Baldwin, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Charles Laughton, Francis Bacon, Horatio Alger, Tchaikovsky, Eleanor Roosevelt, Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci. Whether these people were gay or not is at least to me, of little relevance.
Howard Glasser
Kelseyville
