The Navy Times should be commended for allowing this important and articulate indictment of "Don't ask, don't tell" and the other anti-gay military policies which preceded it. The fact that "Buster Pittman" has to use a pseudonym speaks volumes to how difficult it is for military officials to speak out against the policy and the real fear of retribution they face.

Let the Navy Times know that they should continue this dialogue now that it has begun, with a full investigation into the supposed merits of discrimination against lesbians and gay men in the military. Contact: Mail Call, Navy Times, Springfield, VA 22159-0170, e-mail: navylet@atpco.com.

Salon Selectives

In the November 3 issue of the online magazine Salon writer David Horowitz manipulates the gay community's debate around public sex to bash gay men and sexual freedom. According to Horowitz, "The real source of the problem [of the recent rise in gonorrhea rates among gay men] is the re-emergence of a bathouse-sex club subculture that fosters large cohorts of promiscuous strangers spreading the infection in urban gay centers. Cowed by the politically correct activists who have crippled the battle against AIDS, the media have turned a blind eye to the rash of new sex clubs and refuse to make the connection that AIDS is as much a behavioral as a clinical disease." He also feels those men who defend the desire for anonymous sex or multiple partners are "perverse at best, and accessor [ries] to murder at worst." He also maintains that the academic backgrounds of some of the spokesmen for Sex Panic!, a group advocating for open discussion about and the maintenance of public sex spaces belies the fact that "universities routinely provide a political platform for...sexual extremists."

Horowitz refuses to examine and discuss the complex issues around sexual behavior and HIV, instead piggybacking on the recent debate within the gay male community to promote his own anti-gay agenda. He fails to note how no evidence exists that nonmonogamy leads to HIV infection in any greater proportion than serial monogamy; how there are important differences between sex clubs and bathhouses in terms of the capacity to enforce safe sex behavior; and how finally, and most importantly, how what causes HIV transmission is unprotected sexual contact with an HIV-positive individual, regardless of the number of partners or the type of place you choose to have sex in.

Instead, Horowitz calls one side of the debate "perverse" and "accessories to murder." Horowitz has attacked gay people before, writing a previous column on same-sex marriage that, among other things, said that gay children would never be equal to straight children within a family, and that being "abnormal" is the American way, and that's a perfectly good reasons to deny lesbian and gay men marriage rights.

Please write Salon, and ask them to consider having a gay male columnist respond to David Horowitz's misinformation. His leaps in logic to fulfill his own preconceived anti-gay notions perpetrates defamation, and enlightens no one.

Contact: David Talbot, Editor/Chief Executive Officer, Salon, 706 Mission Street, Second Floor, San Francisco CA 94103, fax 415 882 8731, e-mail salon@salonmagazine.com, WWW: http://www.salon1999.com/contact

Tribune Tribute Honors Gay Journalist

On November 1, longtime Chicago gay columnist Jon-Henri Damski died, and while several local papers honored his passing with obituaries, the Chicago Tribune featured a personal and touching November 5 column from a fellow journalist. "For several years, I've kept Jon-Henri Damski's letters in the middle drawer of my office desk. I was never quite sure why," Tribune columnist Mary Schmich writes. "In his letters, as in his life, words tumbled from him like confetti." She goes on to describe Damski as she knew him, as a friend to a diverse group of people, from hustlers to activists to politicians. She applauded a recent Chicago City Council resolution honoring him as "Chicago's quintessential queer thinker and gay writer." "Damski was more than a writer for gays," she writes.

"Dyslexic and schizophrenic, he had a gift for soundbites, and his thoughts, which he composed by the hundreds, were not so much queer as human: Eros is what you do under the blanket. Love is the blanket; What I say is not always true. What is true I don't always think of; My only objection to monarchy is that I might not be king." Finally, she says, "I know now why I saved those letters. As the legions who knew him and read him will testify, Chicago has never seen anyone quite like him."

Please thank Mary Schmich and the Chicago Tribune for a touching memorial to a longtime gay columnist. Contact: Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611, fax: 312.222.2598, e-mail: tribletter@aol.com.

The GLAADAlert is the weekly activation tool of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. GLAAD promotes fair, accurate and inclusive representation in the media as a means of challenging homophobia and all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity. Contact GLAAD by e-mail at glaad@glaad.org or by phone at 213.658.6775 (Los Angeles), 212.807.1700 (New York), 415.861.2244 (San Francisco), 202.986.1360 (Washington, DC), and 404.607.1204 (Atlanta)

Report defamation in the media by calling GLAAD's Toll-Free AlertLine! 1-800-GAY-MEDIA (1-800-429-6334) Visit GLAAD's Web Site at http//www.glaad.org