Fightin' words. (reader forum).

Reasonable people can disagree about whether national GLBT organizations should speak out on important issues that are not exclusively related to GLBT civil rights, like the impending war against Iraq [Last Word, February 18]. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has long believed that a "gay voice" in such national dialogue is important, that our community need not be limited to a GLBT-only sphere. After all, we're fighting for equality in society as a who/e and not just to remain in a GLBT-only world.

What isn't reasonable is when Andrew Sullivan attempts to bolster his argument not by articulating a rationale for why GLBT organizations should be silent on issues like the war but by writing a scattered diatribe against NGLTF that promotes blatant falsehoods about what we are and what we do. Here are the facts: (1) NGLTF has joined a national coalition that is advocating alternatives to preemptive war against Iraq. We have taken a rhetorical position with allies who are vital to the ultimate victory of the GLBT equality cause. But as we have made eminently clear, we are not devoting resources to antiwar activities. Our precious resources continue to be dedicated to our 30-year fight for GLBT freedom, justice, and equality. (2) NGLTF's actual work speaks the indisputable truth that we are not, as Sullivan speciously claims, irrelevant to GLBT people. In 2002 alone we were instrumental in defeating all but one of the anti-GLBT ballot measures that were voted on across the country and in passing nine antidiscrimination laws, one hate-crimes law, and one safe-schools law.

And oh, yeah, amid hundreds of public statements about GLBT equality issues, we issued one announcement about joining the Win Without War coalition.

Lorri L. Jean, executive director
NGLTF, Washington, D.C.

Sullivan criticizes NGLTF for publicly taking a position opposed to war on Iraq and suggests that its occasional inclusion of broader social justice issues is irrelevant. It is Sullivan who risks irrelevancy by insisting that gay organizations have no business weighing in on political debates with wide-ranging implications for gay and nongay folks alike.

Sullivan's politics of selfishness is tired. A single-minded focus on "What's in it for me?" threatens the very legitimacy of our movement and undermines opportunities for broad-based support. Moreover, the very arrogance, unilateralism, and imperialism that drives the Bush administration to war is the same holier-than-thou philosophy responsible for the most far-reaching attack on civil liberties since Joe McCarthy.

The hundreds of organizations that have taken positions opposed to Bush's war understand that the struggle to end discrimination against us is inexorably tied to the fight to eradicate the race, class, and ethnic divides that breed so much conflict and discontent in this country and worldwide. Sullivan is free to stand by himself. Many more of us understand and appreciate the wisdom of activist Mandy Carter: There will be no "justice" if we are concerned with only "just us."

Kate Kendell, executive director
National Center for Lesbian Rights
San Francisco, Calif.

Anyone with any historical memory at all will remember that the times of greatest nationalism and militarism in the United States have also been the times of greatest, most violent antigay sentiment. It was not a coincidence that the McCarthyites were trying to expel not only Communists but homosexuals. Homosexuality is anathema to the shared perception among the militaristic of what it means to be a "good American." War requires strong, unified national support and identity that cannot tolerate difference--sexual or otherwise--and NGLTF is absolutely right to resist the war effort.

Chet Meeks, Albany, N. Y.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Andrew Sullivan, for getting into print what I have felt for some 15 years or more. In the '80s I severed my membership in NGLTF when I found its then-director, Urvashi Vaid, to be misdirecting the organization toward gay-irrelevant issues and away from the issues that the group purported to be involved with. The final straw for me was Vaid's leading the NGLTF to a position concerning abortion on demand. No one denies that abortion on demand was and is a socially important question. But it is not a gay issue.

Thomas Parkinson, Mishawaka, Ind.