keesan@bbncca.ARPA (Morris Keesan) (12/20/83)
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Copied without comment from Ann Landers's column in the Boston Sunday Globe
of 18 December 1983:
Dear Ann Landers:
Although you have printed some very good columns on homosexuality, you
remain adamant in your refusal to consider that way of life "normal."
After all, who among us is qualified to say what is "normal?" Has it ever
occurred to you that for the homosexual his (or her) sexual preference IS
normal?
You claim to be a friend to all humankind, and I believe you want to be
even-handed. It would mean a great deal to those of us who are different
in this one respect if you would rethink your position. To be considered
abnormal is to be stigmatized in a way that is grossly unfair.
-- Us In Ohio
[Ann's answer:]
In 1930 Dr. Karl Menninger (now 90 years old) wrote a book called "The
Human Mind." Dr. Karl was then, and is now, considered one of the world's
greatest psychiatrists. This is what he wrote in that book:
ON THE NORMAL MAN: The adjuration to be "normal" seems shockingly
repellent to me; I see neither hope nor comfort in sinking to that low
level. I think it is ignorance that makes people think of abnormality only
with horror and allows them to remain undismayed at the proximity of
"normal" to average and mediocre. For surely anyone who achieves anything
is, essentially, abnormal.
--
Morris M. Keesan
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