Dear Editor:

After reading many articles on the bigoted and trouble-making San Diego Police Department, I question the Mayor and Police of Chief, why is homophobia sill allowed in your fine city?

It is ongoing and will not stop because of society, that men, mainly closeted and elderly males make a habit of looking for sex from public bathrooms to city parks.

It is a fact, that this happens everywhere in the USA.

Most customers that visit adult bookstores are gay men looking for a hookup or a relief of their anxiety. Now I have read that undercover cops are busting and harassing gays at the local baths? Why?

I feel that the two leaders need to open their minds or close all such establishments. Busting and targeting gay men is an issue that I have and millions of others have against their given city and police department. Closing such places will place these men into parks and behind bushes until some psycho fag-hater starts his killing spree.

San Diego needs to look at San Francisco. The cops have better things to do than being in adult indoor establishments and harassing gay men. This is San Francisco’s attitude and maybe San Diego needs have somewhat the same behavior. Crime is on the streets so go after these individuals and stop making gays the target of an easy booking for cash in the coffers.

Doug Christoff

Palm Springs

Dear Editor:

Nicole expressed his opinion regarding the progress of the war and why we should bring our troops home now. Should this be done, I believe he is correct about Iraq returning to a tyrannical rule; however I strongly disagree with this cut and run idea.

Anybody with an ounce of common sense cannot rule out that WMDs did, at least on one occasion, exist in Iraq. It is well documented that Hussein has used chemical weapons. This former dictator was not a benevolent soul who cared about his people enough to stop this program because it was too dangerous. Whether or not we should have dealt with it in this manner is a point of contention in this country, mostly orchestrated by the far-leftist media and politicians. The insurgents in Iraq are not limited to its citizens, so claims made about Iraqi citizens wanting the U.S. to get out are not entirely accurate. The U.S. should get out, after we regain control and hand that control back to them.

Whether or not you agree with the President’s decision, his intent was to protect this country from these obvious potential threats. Where this President has failed miserably is by not letting the military do what the military was trained to do. Instead, he’s let the politicians run this miserable campaign, and we’ll lose many more lives if he doesn’t start acting like a commander in chief. War is never pleasant and it should never be an easy option, but once the decision is made we should remain steadfast and never place our troops in danger because some politician decides we’re not being sensitive enough.

I cannot support putting our troops in harms way by limiting their means to an end like this. This is a war where strength will have to be shown, for it is only violence and death that these terrorists understand. We have the means, but appear to lack the desire.

To cut and run only serves to show the enemy that we have no stomach for this and will further increase their determination to destroy our way of life. Until Bush defines this war as he should, progress, or the lack of, will be slow and lethal. Democrats and Republicans have got to resolve to finish this war for the sake of our security. If they’re shooting at us from the Mosques, we should bomb those Mosques and take them out. Conversely, they’d do the same to us and our churches. This backwards ideology we’re fighting is not something we should be sensitive to, rather more aggressive against lest we find ourselves without our collective heads in the near future.

Vacant-minded Leftists and impotent Conservatives are useless. It is my prayer that we can eventually elect leaders from either party who will act for the good of this country by working towards an end to this miserable situation. We really have no other options.

Bill Lullo

Dear Editor:

The assertion in Gay and Lesbian Times of 3/16/06 that Crash was an incredible film and “every bit as deserving of its ‘Best Picture’ Oscar as Brokeback Mountain, is ridiculous and absurd. Film Critic Kenneth Turan of the LA Times calls Crash “at its core, a standard Hollywood movie, as mani-pulative and unrealistic as the day is long.” Even compared to the previous 29 Best Pictures, Crash, is easily out-performed by them when you add up their individual nominations, Oscars, and box office take combined. The NY Daily News, moreover, gave it just two stars in its review...hardly a film having the aura of a Best Picture to it.

Then the writer of this fairy tale asserts that Crash won because of its having a home town advantage...really? Then why did L.A. Confidential, Chinatown, and Sunset Boulevard—all set in the same LA—all lose the Best Picture award to other films? This is a fiction put out by the makers of Crash who know the real reason why their film won.

Now to Brokeback Mountain. A daring and controversial film, no doubt, but also ground breaking story about enduring gay love facing the hardships of homophobia with grace. But after topping all the other nominated films with eight nominations, that same homophobia began creeping around the Academy.

Tony Curtis, an Academy member posing as a defender of that symbol of masculinity, the American cowboy, derided the film on tv as somehow dirty: “You don’t put those things on the screen(meaning two guys in love).” Then invoked the memory of John Wayne whom “would not approve” and said “It was a mistake” to nominate it. Another member, actor Ernest Borgnine, said “I don’t care to see it” and also invoked Wayne. Others chimed in and said the cowboys made them feel “uncomfortable” and “we don’t vote for films like that,” she told a reporter. Nobody in the Academy, sadly, cared enough to speak in defense of Brokeback Mt. or say that these bigots spoke only for themselves. An institution that had always seen itself as a force for progress in the world suddenly had no stomach for a fight. They removed this amazing and beautiful film from their esteemed Best Picture list and substituted a car wreck DVD that had been put in stores six months before! What could have been a grand finale to 78 years of rewarding excellence on Oscar night turned into a travesty of justice.

On tv the next day, a conservative critic gloated over the cowboys’ defeat, saying the Academy averted an embarassment. But then I heard Robert Osborne, the Academy’s Official Historian, call the loser a film that had greater stature than the winner...and I felt a lot better. Then I remembered what fear also did to Citizen Kane...another film that deserved to win, but didn’t. Then I felt even better.

John Primavera