Letters

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday April 16, 2008

A song and dance over a brave request

The gay boys who wanted to take their gay partners to the dance at Brisbane's Anglican Church Grammar School dance have so much guts ("Maybe a waltz, but no gay Gordons", April 15). I grew up in the '60s in Townsville, knowing something about me was different. but I didn't understand that I was gay. Sex was never discussed in those days. It is so brave of these young men to even ask they be allowed to bring their gay partners to the dance. I had stupidly hoped that times had changed, but it seems, in some quarters, they have not.

Alan Alexander Johnson Nundah (Qld)

It's about time that the Anti-Discrimination Act actually banned discrimination in all sections of society, rather than allow any number of exemptions based on myth, phobia or persecutory thinking held in the minds of the religious elite.

Robert Eager Rockdale

Australia's first lady

St Quinctus and St Quinctilla were a brother and sister, martyred in the early years of Christianity. Both Quinctus and Quintilla are translated as Quentin in English so our next governor-general has a girl's name after all (Letters, April 15). Quentin, meaning fifth in Latin, was sometimes given to the fifth child in a Roman family. Maybe St Quinctus and St Quinctilla were twins with four older siblings. St Bryce was a boy, however, from Fife in Scotland and Bryce is usually a boy's name but what the heck.

Graham English, senior lecturer Australian Catholic University Strathfield

Mix and mash

D'Arcy v Hall (Letters, April 15)? I'd like to see that.

Robert MacNab Bulli

Tunnel vision of a tyred man

Imagine my surprise at 7.30pm on Sunday, heading towards the city through the Lane Cove Tunnel, to see a nervous-looking guy changing a tyre in the left-hand lane, not far from the exit. Where were the rescue and recovery vehicles and the warning flashing lane lights? Sydney people don't have a clue how dangerous vehicle tunnels can be but this seems almost bizarre. Surely someone from the company was watching the tunnel on close-circuit TV. Very scary.

Richard Jones Surry Hills

Men in uniformity

Ooh, Chris Edye and Igor Bosma, you are sour, aren't you (Letters, April 15)? Could we send you some lemons to sweeten you up?

Michele Connolly Berkeley (US)

Aren't there enough white, male city-dwellers in power?

Debby O'Brien Armidale

It's not music to my years

When Gerard Willems went to some considerable effort to record Beethoven's entire output of piano sonatas on the Stuart piano, he did so because he believed that the sound the piano made was closest to what Beethoven was hearing in his inner ear. Meghan Stevens (Letters, April 14) may not like this sound but I suggest she is in the minority. The Stuart produces a clarity of sound that is definitely unlike any other piano.

Ted Orme West Pymble

How old are you, Meghan Stevens? Ragtime is "modern" music?

Matt Luxford Terrigal

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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