Robert Dawidoff

Robert Smith's column on Arcana's proprietor, Lee Kaplan (Book Review, Oct. 31), covered more territory than four paragraphs of language would seem to make possible. I sometimes think there are owners of secondhand bookstores who belong as much to the history of literature as the literature they sell. Because the great books are out of print they are crucially positioned to do for the public what a Barnes & Noble or Crown is not interested in doing. A Lee Kaplan rescues from oblivion "a copy of Danny Lyon's seminal paperback of bikers' photos," and provides a visitor to his bookstore with a magic lantern into another world.

Re "Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness--Gay or Straight," Commentary, June 26: We were delighted that you published the article by Robert Dawidoff. As parents of five children, one of whom is gay, we feel that our gay son is entitled to the same rights and freedoms that our other children enjoy. He and his partner have lived together for 23 years and are the parents of an adopted child. Our son operates a good business and pays taxes like everyone else, and like everyone else, he should have the right to legally marry the one he loves.

Re "Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness--Gay or Straight," Commentary, June 26: We were delighted that you published the article by Robert Dawidoff. As parents of five children, one of whom is gay, we feel that our gay son is entitled to the same rights and freedoms that our other children enjoy. He and his partner have lived together for 23 years and are the parents of an adopted child. Our son operates a good business and pays taxes like everyone else, and like everyone else, he should have the right to legally marry the one he loves.

The two columnists writing about Ellen DeGeneres' coming out certainly don't give her many options (Commentary, April 18). Robert Dawidoff wants Ellen to embrace the lesbian lifestyle. He even hopes Ellen experiences "an intense, and even hostile lesbian separatist phase." Cal Thomas is even more absurd. It's bad enough he'd stuff Ellen back in the closet, but he also wants her to "go to church with her husband and children, vote Republican," ad nauseam. My guess is that DeGeneres wishes to be free of others' expectations of who she is and who she should be. My hat's off to Ellen for being her own person and rejecting such extreme options.

In his review of "The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amendment" (The Book Review, Dec. 15), Jeffrey Allen blatantly substitutes tendentious personal opinion about the book's important subject for a responsible consideration of the book itself. Leonard Levy has written a clearly argued and authoritative book intended to inform public consideration of the role of religion in American public life by providing a scholarly account of the intent of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

The two columnists writing about Ellen DeGeneres' coming out certainly don't give her many options (Commentary, April 18). Robert Dawidoff wants Ellen to embrace the lesbian lifestyle. He even hopes Ellen experiences "an intense, and even hostile lesbian separatist phase." Cal Thomas is even more absurd. It's bad enough he'd stuff Ellen back in the closet, but he also wants her to "go to church with her husband and children, vote Republican," ad nauseam. My guess is that DeGeneres wishes to be free of others' expectations of who she is and who she should be. My hat's off to Ellen for being her own person and rejecting such extreme options.

I enjoyed Joe Morgenstern's article on gay conservatives ("Another Gay Party Line," Sept. 4), especially the mention of Luke Sissyfag's important contribution to American politics. I am straight, white, male and Protestant, so I'm technically part of the nation's power structure. Though I consider voting a religious duty, I often have problems with it, because there are so many candidates about whom I know nothing other than their names. Since I don't try to pass as a conservative and I do believe in equal political opportunity, I try to vote for names that indicate minorities, a procedure that's not always effective.

We live today in a fragmented culture, a place of sectarianism and special interests, where the focus tends more to the things that separate us than to the things we share. It's an unfortunate development--although, perhaps, inevitable, given the promises this country has made and broken to the disenfranchised over the years--for it comes with an accompanying narrowness of vision, a sense that we should just pay attention to our own back yards.

One Saturday last spring, the same day that marked the kickoff of West Hollywood's annual Gay and Lesbian Pride Celebration, a small group of conservative Republican activists got together for an alfresco fund-raising brunch in a Hollywood Hills home. The setting seemed like heaven--ripe oranges and lemons on curving branches, mockingbirds burbling arias beneath an azure sky--and the dozen or so guests seemed perfectly cast for their roles as Grand Old Party stalwarts.

Re "TV-H: Hazardous to Your Hypocrisy," Commentary, Oct. 19: Robert Dawidoff misses the reason Disney (ABC) decided on its parental warning on "Ellen." American families aren't ready for homosexual behavior to be deemed "normal." P.S.--Disney was one of the first companies to provide "domestic partner" insurance coverage. MATT STANKUS Trabuco Canyon

I enjoyed Joe Morgenstern's article on gay conservatives ("Another Gay Party Line," Sept. 4), especially the mention of Luke Sissyfag's important contribution to American politics. I am straight, white, male and Protestant, so I'm technically part of the nation's power structure. Though I consider voting a religious duty, I often have problems with it, because there are so many candidates about whom I know nothing other than their names. Since I don't try to pass as a conservative and I do believe in equal political opportunity, I try to vote for names that indicate minorities, a procedure that's not always effective.

We live today in a fragmented culture, a place of sectarianism and special interests, where the focus tends more to the things that separate us than to the things we share. It's an unfortunate development--although, perhaps, inevitable, given the promises this country has made and broken to the disenfranchised over the years--for it comes with an accompanying narrowness of vision, a sense that we should just pay attention to our own back yards.

Robert Smith's column on Arcana's proprietor, Lee Kaplan (Book Review, Oct. 31), covered more territory than four paragraphs of language would seem to make possible. I sometimes think there are owners of secondhand bookstores who belong as much to the history of literature as the literature they sell. Because the great books are out of print they are crucially positioned to do for the public what a Barnes & Noble or Crown is not interested in doing. A Lee Kaplan rescues from oblivion "a copy of Danny Lyon's seminal paperback of bikers' photos," and provides a visitor to his bookstore with a magic lantern into another world.

In his review of "The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amendment" (The Book Review, Dec. 15), Jeffrey Allen blatantly substitutes tendentious personal opinion about the book's important subject for a responsible consideration of the book itself. Leonard Levy has written a clearly argued and authoritative book intended to inform public consideration of the role of religion in American public life by providing a scholarly account of the intent of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Re "His Depression Is 'Real,' All Right," Commentary, July 5: Robert Dawidoff effectively captures the insidiousness and misunderstanding of this crippling, negativistic disease. It is important after a depression lifts to remember that good experiences may have occurred during the blue phase; you just weren't able to interpret them positively. These experiences need to be reviewed, so that they can be more appropriately integrated into the psyche. Such ongoing cognitive self-management is a major key to surviving depression.