Caricatures not helpful.

Dear editor,

It is an old strategy to demonize one's opponents. After all, if they can be shown to be evil, mindless, and otherwise less than human, then we do not have to take their views seriously. Bishop Terry Brown ("Something is very wrong here," May 2003) comes very closer to demonizing those who disagree with him. He says that such people: (a) do not know grace; (b) "totally condemn" all homosexuals; (c) universalize their own personal experience; (d) oppose all forms of physical pleasure; (e) have an unsophisticated view of Paul; (f) believe Christianity is about law rather than freedom, and (g) do not understated that love is the only rule in the Christian life.

Among opponents of same-sex blessings there may be some who fit his parody. (I suppose there may be some on the other side who fit the opposite caricature.) But many conservatives are thoughtful and gracious people, simply trying to do what is loving and right and faithful to our story, as I presume Bishop Brown is.

The conversation on homosexuality and the blessing of same-sex unions has already generated far more heat than light. If progress is to be made, each side needs to demonstrate that it sympathetically understands the other. Bishop Brown's caricatures only serve to make things worse.

John Bowen 

Toronto