To Ron: I read with interest your letter or article on this months newsletter. Hunkering down, indeed. I don't know how not to, and I don't know how to anymore. It is a time of confusion, but a time of joy and revelation, too. I can't imagine living in a small town, or closed environment of any kind, and not hunkering down. How can those who live there not? And yet, quite probably our friends living there would be surprised at how openly they'd be accepted – except by a few, of course, and those would be the most guilty with their own personal thoughts. However, it is hard to get that message understood when living under the cover of darkness. And, there is always the group of judges of any and all behaviors, which we while living under those conditions choose not to notice or to know all too well, and avoid at all costs, for usually they are the same small people. why are these people so important to us?

We have, as a group, have let people decide our lives so much that for many of us not doing so is frightening. However, the same is true for all segments of society, we just might not know who else feels this way. Nor do those living hunkered down and hidden really know that there are those of us who live normal lives, with all of the concerns that that brings, without hiding, and thus they do not know freedom.

Currently, there seems to be the physical law of equal and opposite reaction, except the opposite is loud and has guns, thus making them not so opposite, but opposing – and imposing. When "The Family" comes out in support of gay bashing, and god knows how many of them are guilty of the bashing or of have experienced what they oppose, it becomes a very sick world. And yet, we must either hunker down or stand up and be seen. Tough choices, to either be visible in spite of the hate or to hide from the hate and let it grow exponentially, and thus need to hide more. The fear is that with our society in this country - not so different but by degree from the radical Islamic fundamentalists, should the radical Christian or Jewish fundamentalists here actually get the power that they want and seem to be getting through the ignorance and foolishness of the 50% -what would happen to us should they have the power? It is blatantly obvious when known leaders of their tribe suggest that all gays should be treated as drug offenders and put into jails -having missed so many points of informed logic as to be unimaginable. Should those people come into more power, the Nazi approaches would become a strong potential here.

Therefore, those who do not desire to stand up should be aware that by not doing so, those hypocrites who preach the gospel and call themselves conservative when they are they most radical group imaginable, will definitely have the power we'd be better off with their not having.

Hunkering down is the way to having your head bashed in, but it takes courage and a strong self-determining will to stand up. Either we'll stand, or we'll be bashed. Either we all hang together, or we all hang separately, as Franklin said.

There seems to be the equal side of strength and support. Now is the time to value it by using it. -Arnold