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Hi Ivan M Suzman <[log in to unmask]>, you wrote >There are many reasons why it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for me to IDENTIFY >myself as GAY to the Parkinson's List...... I find it difficult to understand why you need to thrust your gayness at us. I am fairly strongly heterosexual, although, like many men (usually undeclared) I do have the occasional feelings of love for another man. In neither case, though, do I find it acceptable to make other people accept my inclinations, nor that I should expose them to any demonstration of my feelings for another person. Yes, I am pleased and proud when I am with someone I love, but I don't have to subject other people to these emotions. > Could the sight of two men holding hands in loving support of each >other , a PWP and his CG, and REPRESENTING us on OPRAH, make the >Parkinson's world recoil in internal turmoil? PEOPLE supporting (& loving) other PEOPLE, of whatever race, creed, colour, sex or sexual persuasion, is not offensive. People, of whatever sex or persuasion, making a point of their OTHERNESS most certainly IS. You and I, Ivan, are here for the same reason: we have Parkinson's Disease. You dilute our message to the world at large if you insist on the fact that you are gay, instead of concentrating on the messages to do with you being PWP. > These expressions of love and support, SO acceptable in the hetero >world, would probably be the source of an outcry of "OH NO, DON'T LET >THIS BEHAVIOR REPRESENT US!" No, I don't find them acceptable in the hetero world. In public I limit my behaviour towards my wife to what will not embarrass others. Can you not do the same? > So my question is, WHAT PUBLIC IMAGE OF PWP's AND THEIR >CAREPARTNERS is comfortable for you?? What public image is unacceptable >as a role model of our common battle?? Again, PLEASE be honest. It's like advertising - it should be clean, honest and decent. That last word includes "discreet" >and, "Proud-to-be-gay!" Why? Did you work at it, develop it, build it from a small idea to completion, or did it just happen? I would no more say I am PROUD to be heterosexual than that I am proud to have Parkinson's: both just "happened"! Ivan, I do seem to be getting at you a bit: NOT intended as a personal attack, but as a way of refocussing our image on the PWPness, and whatever we can get done about that. -- Jeremy Browne - [log in to unmask] Shaking Hands BBS - +44 (0)1252 626233 - Fidonet 2:252/160