LETTER: Look Around

I won't even try to counter the hate-laden letter of complaint (DP 3/30/92) against The Daily Pennsylvanian for publishing a front-page photo of two gay men kissing . Instead, I'm going to address the reason such a visibly placed photograph is necessary. The author made the argument that, just as the DP doesn't publish photos of heterosexuals kissing, nor should they show pictures of "faggots" sucking face (the author didn't use the epithet, but you could read it between every line). In other words, the author wants us to believe that homosexuals are okay as long as they don't go shoving their sexuality up your face, so to speak. I would completely agree with this argument, were it not for one glaring fact: heterosexuals wear their sexual preference so openly everyday that it becomes invisible. Look around! The media brazenly trumpets heterosexuality in every print ad, in every beer commercial, in every soap opera, in those romantic black-and-white posters showing glamorous couples making out on lamp-lit Paris streets. So what would be the news value of a straight couple kissing? Gays and lesbians have to live in this world where next to nothing reflects their own reality. If I found the concept of "difference" as repugnant as the author does, then I would live my life in a frenzy of hatred and repugnance of all these images of heterosexual passion. This is why photos like the one the author decried are absolutely necessary. Until the everyday life of gay people becomes so absorbed into the story of all our lives that gays and lesbians too become invisible or taken for granted, then such and obvious and blatant redressing of the imbalance will be required. KEITH ADAMS Research Associate Wharton