Taking pride.

Shame on The Advocate and shame on heterosexual publicist Michael Levine ["Is Pride Good PR?" June 6]! His argument that pride events "do more harm than good" to the LGBTQ community is unfounded and heterosexist! He claims that there is "disapproval of homosexuality by the majority," and he blames the LGBTQ community and our pride events for this, without ever taking into consideration the ideology behind pride events and their historical context. He also never addresses the amount of money behind homophobic organizations whose sole purpose is to destroy the LGBTQ community. The "spectacle" of pride events, of which he speaks, is not to please the media or the heterosexual hegemonic majority. On the contrary, these pride events celebrate our LGBTQ accomplishments and create visibility for others in our community to feel free to come out and to feel loved and proud.

Levine should not worry about how we ate perceived; instead he and the LGBTQ community should be concerned about how our festivals have been hijacked by corporations. Just because the marketplace has began to see the value of the LGBTQ dollar doesn't mean we have freedom yet.

BRIAN JACOBS Los Angeles, Calif.

I have a feeling some readers may give Michael Levine flak for his article "Is Pride Good PR?" mainly because he's straight. However, I'm a proud lesbian, and I agree completely. It makes no sense that we work so hard to undo negative stereotypes and prove that we're regular people, then prove the bits of truth in those stereotypes by riding on phallus floats in leather chaps, looking to all observers like the exact deviants we swear we're not. If we want to convince the majority that we exist and that we're decent, hardworking citizens, we should bring our families along and dress how we would at work. It may not be as flashy, but it gets the point across better.

K. AUSTIN Chicago, III.

Pride events are not PR events. Levine's idea that the gay community should slink back into the shadows because the news media can't be bothered to cover us properly is very much the same as a rapist telling the jury that "she was asking for it, dressed like that."

What Mr. Levine and other line-drawers need to remember is that to the people who choose to ignore/dislike/hate the presence of gay citizens, it doesn't matter if we wear leather collars and go topless or wear bow ties and pantsuits, we are all cock-suckers and dykes, period. They don't discern the difference, so neither should we.

PHILIP DE REA Newton, N.J.