Article gives insight into Milk
Your article, "Naval records indicate SF library's Milk discharge paperwork a fake" [February 13], actually gives me an insight as to why Harvey Milk became such a forceful advocate for LGBT rights: He was a victim of a 1950s version of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." I personally knew Milk and am glad I have lived to an era when our rights have some legal protection. Thanks to Dan White, Milk did not live for that day.
Arlo Hale Smith
San Francisco
Saddened by bathhouse news
I was saddened to read in a recent Bay Area Reporter that gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman has introduced legislation to reinstate the opening of bathhouses in San Francisco ["Gay bathhouses could one day return to San Francisco," February 6].
As a former volunteer in the Shanti Project at the time, I remember the horror of seeing many of our gay men die of AIDS after attending those places. It took quite awhile to close the bathhouses, but where money is involved, people do strange things.
This is a request not to reopen the bathhouses in your city. Being gay in California, at least, is now considered normal, and it would be a shame to see all that death reintroduced. It's not like there is no place to be gay in your city.
Mary Richards
Cathedral City, California