Baby steps.

After reading Chris Rice's column titled "Friends Like These" [November 8] I felt overwhelmingly compelled, but perhaps not in the sense he'd like his readers to be.

Perhaps many younger gay men and women feel as he does, that the gay marriage movement has been "thrust" on the national stage, but I disagree. For us folks who are a bit older, this sudden identification on a large scale isn't something that I've seen appear out of thin air. What I have seen is a marriage movement that has been created by thousands of small stories massed to bring on a movement. To disregard that fact is to devalue the efforts of thousands of us who have for many years been pushing for equality.

What compelled me even more than this sudden phenomenon theory was his issue with conservative friends. All too often I see young gay men out there, being social, making as many friends as possible, only to find a special nobility in being able to dish them at some later date when their sense of expectation has not been met. This is not only foolish but immature. To create friendships goes far beyond political opinions. Perhaps knowing that the marriage movement was not thrust onto the national stage, Rice would be better apt at dealing with today's dissenting views by understanding that we take one step at a time, or even a hundred, but not just "one" giant leap. Indeed, his ex-friends undoubtedly feel as correct in their views as he feels in his. To accept that and work with them puts you in a higher playing field.

A suggestion? Take the approach that the friends we keep may disagree politically, but dishing them for this fact is far too immature a position for any of us to take in volatile political times.

BILL SIEGEL Montreal, Canada