The good boy.

Thank you, thank you, Lane Hudson for your resourcefulness and moral backbone to out former congressman Mark Foley [First Person, December 19]. Too bad your former employer, the Human Rights Campaign, doesn't have the same qualities. Public figures, especially elected officials, who are hypocrites must be made known. I can only hope we see more of you and your tactics in our national leadership in the future.

JIM BUSSEN Mount Vernon, III.

As a parent who happens to be gay, I wish to express my thanks and support for Lane Hudson and his willingness to do what was right. Rep. Mark Foley's sexual orientation is irrelevant; the fact that he is a pedophile is the real and certainly most dangerous issue to adolescent boys. Unfortunately, he happens to be a pedophile who is gay, something that statistics show is far less common than heterosexual pedophiles. The fact that Republicans actively ignored this issue, placing adolescent boys at risk, is reflective of their own psychopathology, something they and other right-wing extremists attempted to deflect by emphasizing Foley's sexual orientation. It is my hope that any person, gay or straight, would take steps to protect children and adolescents from a pedophile, as that is the only right thing to do. As a parent, I can only hope that if my son is ever at risk, someone like Lane Hudson will be there to step forward and do the right thing, which would be to report the pedophile. Sexual orientation is irrelevant when it comes to pedophiles or, for that matter, any criminal activity. Being united in preventing discrimination and homophobia does not mean looking the other way when gay people break the law.

DARRELL OWENS Seattle, Wash.

Although it quite obviously wasn't his intent, Lane Hudson's self-righteous "what a good boy am I" defense of his actions concerning former representative Mark Foley made me laugh aloud. Let me get this straight. Foley is a pervert? Maybe I'm confused, but doesn't the vast majority of Americans and more than three quarters of the rest of the world find us queer folk to be anathema and define us all with that term, pervert? Hudson's juvenile name-calling reminds me of that kindergarten response "Takes one to know one." The comical part of Hudson's rationale is its irony. Foley had many choices, definitely made some bad ones, and hurt people in the process; Hudson had many choices, deliberately made the one that he knew would destroy another gay man, and hurt a lot of people in the process. I don't see the difference. Foley may have been hypocritical, and he may even have been seeking his own self-interest, but Hudson's own self-interest led him to expose someone's private life that had no bearing on his own.

We gay men don't need to worry about what the Republicans, the religious right, or homophobes will do to us. We should instead be worried about those of our own who seek to build themselves up at the expense of the rest of us. Mr. Hudson reminds me of the words of an ancient Greek philosopher: "May the gods protect us from the things men do in the name of 'good.'" I'm much more afraid of people like him than I would ever be of Mark Foley.

You've given Hudson his 15 minutes of self-proclaimed fame. Now let him slip back under the blog rock from which he came so he can sleep.

VINCENT LACHINA Seattle, Wash.