Every child born into a minority, racial, or ethnic group asks his parents, "Why do they hate us?"

No gay child ever gets to ask this question because often his parents are in the group hating gay people. It is a marvel that gay people manage to grow up to be sane in a hateful society. They get no support from their parents, contemporaries, clergymen, or teachers. It is a wonder that we are not all neurotic.

Several Apollo men have been writing me about this lately, and I will pass on their thoughts and mine in the coming days.

Why do they hate us? Have you noticed that more often than not, the "they" are males? Thus, we have the first and probably foremost reason for homophobia, sexual doubt on the part of the hater.

Why on earth would one person care what another person preferred sexually? I know a straight couple who joke that every Sunday morning is their time to have sex. Their friends who are in on the humor make jokes about it, but no one wants to know or even cares what the Sunday morning sex includes. We do not even want to think about it.

When someone is obsessively concerned about what two men do together, you have to wonder why, and the easy but dependable answer comes to mind: He is worried and unsure about his own feelings of homosexuality. We usually ignore things that we do not care about and make fun of things that we do. If a guy cannot have the girl of his choice, he finds reasons to dislike her. Hating and vocally assaulting gay people say a lot about the hater.

As usual Will Shakespeare said it best: "Me thinks the lady doth protest too much."

(We will look at others who hate gay people and their reason including political groups, religions, and the greatest of all haters, the US Pentagon.)