For instance, she writes, since you are not of the African-American race, you will never know how it feels to grow up in a society where people hate you because you happen to be blessed with a little more pig-ment in your skin. While I agree for the most part with that statement, I can identify with at least a little bit of how it feels to grow up in a so-ciety that hates you. While you have your problems because you are an African American, I have my prob-lems because of the choice of my sex partners. In other words, I face some of the same discriminations and more simply because I choose to love someone of the same sex.

At least you have the Civil Rights Act to protect some of your discrimi-nations along with special programs to guarantee that you have fair and equal access to employment. As a gay male, I don’t have any of those protections. I can’t even walk down the street with someone I love with-out fear of losing my life. Sure, I am supposed to be protected while I am on the SIU campus under some non-discrimination act, but even that is a joke.

For those who will now step up on their soapboxes and say that this is not the same that I have some-how made a choice to be gay and live my lifestyle all I can say is Come on! Do you think anyone would purposely choose to be some-thing they knew society would hate and loath? Homosexuality is not a choice not a lifestyle decision but at the same time that does not make it sick, disgusting or degra-ding. In other words, being homo-sexual does not mean that one sud-denly should lose all rights in society and figuratively if not literally be spat upon. I don’t want special rights all I am asking for is equal rights. I can’t even get those in to-day’s society.

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I guess what I am trying to say is that the next time one group gets on a soap box about how evil they have been treated, they should think of the other minority groups out there and look at their status in relation to those groups. I would have to say that as far as rights go, being gay is probably at the bottom rung of the ladder.