THE PUBLIC MIND: WHY SHOULD HOMOSEXUALS BE DENIED BASIC PRIVACY?

To the Editor:

In his Sept. 5 column, "Research on homosexuality greeted with befuddlement," Jay Eastlick discusses the impact of a recent research finding by Simon LeVay. I waited to respond to Eastlick's column until I could see LeVay's research in print; today I got the issue of the journal Science in which he published his results. It has been known for a while that a certain group of cells in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain that controls the release of hormones, is larger in males than in females. LeVay found that this cell group in homosexual males was small, more like that of a female.

The work is preliminary, but it adds to a growing body of research supporting what homosexuals have long said: that people do not choose their sexual preferences, but are born with them. Eastlick, however, says that even if homosexuals' sexual preference is innate, they should repress it. What if the shoe were on the other foot? How would Eastlick react if society told him that he should give up heterosexual activity and "conform to society's standards?"

Eastlick argues that "the whole point of law is to legislate a code of what's morally accepted by society." Suppose, he says, that murderers and rapists also have inborn urges that drive them. We make laws restricting their "right" to act on those urges; why, he argues, shouldn't we do the same with homosexuals, whose behavior flouts our "Judeo-Christian absolutes"? I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the American tradition. In America, laws exist to protect the rights of the people. This year we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, a document designed specifically to protect minority groups in our democracy from the tyranny of the majority. Furthermore, religious morality is specifically prohibited as a basis for law in this country. Separation of church and state prevents any home-grown Ayatollahs from decreeing how we are to behave.

Laws against murder and rape don't simply enforce society's moral bias. They protect citizens from being harmed by others. Who is harmed by homosexual intercourse, in private, between consenting adults? Possibly the participants, but the same could be said of promiscuous heterosexual intercourse. In fact, sexual acts, when adults wish to perform them in private, are nobody else's business. There is an immense hypocrisy and prejudice revealed by Missouri law in sexual offenses. Behind closed doors, my wife and I can legally perform any sexual acts we want in this state, even, if we choose, the same ones that homosexual men perform. Quite rightly, heterosexual Missourians don't want the police invading their bedrooms. So why should homosexuals be denied this basic privacy?

Allen Gathman

Cape Girardeau