To the editors:
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You, Ms. Barnidge, are the classic half-ass liberal masking her real homophobia and hatred behind a well-intentioned collection of arrogant lies, condescension and wincing toleration. In your finite wisdom, you maintain that “schoolgirl-league cuddling and kissing” do not a lesbian make. Well, just what kind of visual justification do you need? Full-scale cunnilingus? And if memory serves me correctly, there was some pretty intense groping and foreplay on display that the Brady Bunch girls never explored. You perpetuate the stereotype that lesbians and gays are incapable of relating to each other in the same quality-filled intimacy and sexual fulfillment in love that straights enjoy. Who needs “to make censors twitch” when you do it so well yourself?
Do the world a big favor, Ms. Barnidge. Sell insurance. Or better yet, if you can’t really contain your bigotry, let it all hang out, baby! Go find a production of Bent somewhere and tell us in your review that homosexuals and Jews didn’t die in concentration camps. Or that the impact of AIDS on the gay community depicted by The Normal Heart is exaggerated. Or that the nurturing, long-term relationships between gays in Longtime Companion is a myth.
Labels exclude far more than they include. In saying that the two female protagonists of Secrets were not necessarily lesbians, I meant that love is love, regardless of the gender of the lovers or the name others give to them. A story of lifelong devotion between any two people has something to say to all audiences.
