My far-flung correspondents

Bay Windows has already posted my latest column, "Feedback Farrago," on its website. This week I rummage through my mailbag. Here's an excerpt:

On Christmas Eve, "ex-gay" advocate Sharon Kass copied me on a message to Chicago-based gay writer Paul Varnell: "Untreated homosexuality, like other untreated emotional disorders, involves rage, depression, anxiety, and narcissism ... In 1999, the victim of ’gay’ lust-aggression was thirteen-year-old Jesse Dirkhising. In 2006, it was thirty-two-year-old Robert Wone ... Do you really think the American people are gonna stand for this? The plain illogic of homosexuality works against it politically. And ex-gay information is spreading. There is life after ’gay.’ And it’s better."

Instead of responding with rage, depression, anxiety, and narcissism, I wrote, "Your reference to the illogic is a nice touch, given your preposterous generalizing from a few cherry-picked horror stories. And heterosexuality should be suppressed because of the crimes of [straight serial killer] Ted Bundy ... Get help. You are making Baby Jesus cry."

After I wrote in defense of abortion rights last June, a reader identified as "Pat_1425" wrote, "Abortion is genocide. Your moral equivocation and your advocacy of genocide undermine your credibility. You are no different than Adolf Hitler or Pol Pot. The only good abortionist is a dead abortionist." I accused him of "an authoritarian perspective fundamentally at odds with American governing structures and traditions of liberty." Since he appeared to call for my violent death, I also forwarded his email to the police, and he soon received a visit from the FBI. I love a good argument, but saying you want me dead? Not cool.

One anti-gay obsessive sent me a series of obnoxious rants. I finally replied: "I thought you should know that someone using your name has been sending me the most absurd letters." (This was once written by a member of Congress to a constituent, and as a taxpayer I feel entitled to use it.)

Last week, a woman named Salwa sent the following: "As determined by the Bible, if you are non-Israelite, you are a foreign woman; and the Bible makes known that the foreign women are but prostitutes, rubbish, dirt, robber etc." I replied, "Dear Salwa, I have no idea who you are, but I am rather sure that I am not a foreign woman." Not that there is anything wrong with that.

As usual, the column will also appear in this Thursday's Metro Weekly.