Riding high.

When I received the May 9 issue of The Advocate, I was elated to see a group of young gay and lesbian people on the cover doing something to make this country safer for all GLBT people ["Queer Youth to America: Get on the Equality Bus," May 9]. The root of discrimination and intolerance toward GLBT people in this country is religious fundamentalism. In order to end this discrimination we must confront the source of the problem. Soulforce, which sponsored the Equality Ride, is doing just that.

COREY BRITTIAN HIDLEBAUGH

Lynchburg, Va.

I was surprised to see my alma mater, Abilene Christian University, mentioned in your story on the Equality Ride. As I read the article, I remembered my days at ACU, a place where I went through "ex-gay" therapy and bought into the philosophy that God didn't truly love every part of me. I graduated, planning on getting married to a woman and developing a life that was a standard for ACU grads. Since graduating in 1995, I have come out and moved in with my partner. We attend church and are planning a church wedding, with a blessing from our pastor. It took many years to get here, being comfortable with both my religion and sexual identity. I wonder how my life could be different had a similar event occurred while I attended school in Texas.

RICHARD SNYDER Seattle, Wash.

Move over GLAAD and HRC. The time for action is here. I predict the young Equality Riders' vision and action of coming out of the shadows and bringing truth to this nation is the birth of the kind of change so many of us have been longing to see. In reading about these brave young changemakers, I was reminded of Margaret Mead's famous line: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

DREW KEATING New York, N.Y.

I was a rider on the Soulforce Equality Ride. I am also heterosexual. In our travels across the country, one of our purposes is to be there for the gay students we visit, but we are also on the ride to teach young people how to be allies. So we're not "33 young queers on a bus," like your headline says--we're gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans-gender, and straight allied youth "changing America one campus at a time."

I know The Advocate meant no malice in labeling us as queer. I just feel it's important to acknowledge that gay rights is not a gay issue or a queer issue or an LGBTQQI issue, and when our ride gets labeled as queer, many of the students at the schools we go to see gay rights as a special interest issue that is not their problem. This a human issue, a justice issue, and a straight issue too.

MONICA CARMEAN via the Internet