Letter: Gays on the march

Sir: I wonder what inspired you to combine your comments on the march on Washington with the latest statistical findings of the Battelle Human Affairs Research Center (Leader, 26 April).

I can only conclude a between-the-lines bias in your decision to pair off the protest march, which was about minority rights, with a study showing that this minority apparently constitutes only about 1 per cent of the population, in comparison to the previous Kinsey Report which estimated that 10 per cent of the population is homosexual. Does your leading article therefore imply that homosexuals have become an insignificant part of the society, therefore this group's importance must be degraded?

If you were to substitute the word 'Jew' or 'African-American' for 'homosexual', I rather doubt that a leading article of this nature would have appeared in your newspaper.

You seem to be recommending that the American homosexuals should grin and continue to bear society's prejudice. I doubt whether the late Dr Martin Luther King would have favoured such advice.

Yours sincerely,

JOHN COBLENZ

London, SW7

26 April