Challenging GLAAD's achievements.

To the Editor:

I read Joan Garry's self-congratulatory "Taking On Dr. Laura and The Times" in November-December issue, and must note that I do not remember GLAAD [Gay & Lesbian Alliance against Defamation] "taking on" Dr. Laura either primarily or even importantly. An organization called StopDr-Laura.com began the fight and had contacted the announced major advertisers for Dr. Laura's upcoming TV show and got the most important sponsors to cancel in advance. GLAAD dragged their feet; they opposed her openly in publications and in demonstrations in the streets, noting, by the way, that she was in no way qualified to make all those psychological attacks on gays: her doctorate was in sociology.

I continue to be amused by the references to Dr. Laura's "deeply held religious beliefs." She kept saying that her beliefs were based upon her "traditional Orthodox Hebrew" training. There may be more homophobic traditional Orthodox Hebrew rabbis than gay-friendly ones, but they are nowhere near the number of the traditional Orthodox rabbis who would object to Dr. Laura's commenting upon and interpreting the teachings of their religion. She should know that in the traditional teachings of that religion a woman must sit apart and may not stand upon the alter (even in a wedding; and the bat mitzvohs are a modern heresy). Furthermore, Orthodox Hebrew men must pray daily in a group of at least ten wearing yarmulka, tallis, and tefillin, and one of their daily required prayers gives thanks to God for "not making me a woman"! Modern Judiasm has greatly reformed the Orthodox Hebrew tradition, which is powerful, but a minority even in Israel. But that foolish creature hadn't a clue as to what the religion she claimed to believe in is all about.

Herbert M. Simpson, Geneseo, NY