
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 18, 1993                   TAG: 9305180341
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE TAILHOOK OF WASHINGTON DEMONSTRATIONS

I WOULD like to comment on an April 27 editorial entitled "Officers, but not gentlemen" that concerned the behavior of Navy and Marine officers at the Tailhook Convention in Las Vegas in 1991. The editorial refers to debauchery as "almost too mild a word" to describe the rude, crude and lewd behavior of those officers.

While I agree with the idea of strong disciplinary action for the infractions and for the cover-up, what I can't understand is a story by Associated Press writer Jill Lawrence ("Gay marchers looked like America"). This referred to a parade, in daylight and in public, of debauchery. It was organized by gays and lesbians and took place in Washington, D.C., on April 25.

This group's behavior far surpassed anything that took place at the Tailhook Convention. Yet Lawrence referred to this as looking like "middle-class middle-of-the-road America." I resent this. This was not Disneyland. The parade, the public behavior and rancid public speeches, full of venom for any opposition to their cause, was offensive and disgusting.

Why should we, on one hand, expect proper behavior from conventioneers and between persons of the opposite sex, and on the other accept, as proper behavior, a public display of deviate, perverse and unnatural acts such as went on in the parade and at the Washington Monument between persons of the same sex? A display such as this, which Lawrence wrote "looked like America," was condoned by police authorities. Similar behavior by people of the opposite sex would have resulted in arrest of the participants. HOWARD M. CAMPBELL BEDFORD

by CNB