GEOFF Pollitt (BEN, November 15) confesses that he has ceased to go shopping with his male neighbour, because people may assume that they are queer. I wonder whether he is acting from embarrassment or fear. If he is as free from homophobia as he (very unconvincingly) claims to be, then such an assumption would not trouble him. If, on the other hand, he fears that he might be victimised or attacked, then he should have some inkling of what gays have to contend with all the time.

He is wrong to claim that Peter Tatchell hijacked the word 'gay'. It is a word which Peter doesn't use, preferring the pejorative 'queer' in the belief (rather like that of the American music group 'Niggers With Attitude') that by adopting the vocabulary of the oppressor you can rob it of its venom.

"Live and let live works both ways" he claims, but fails to tell us -- because he can't -- of any instance when gays have criticised the lifestyle of the majority. "Why are you not satisfied with the gains you have made over the last 10-15 years?" he asks. Precisely for the same reasons that the suffragettes were not satisfied when women were first given the vote in 1918, but only when they reached the age of 30.

The argument, in short, -- since Mr Pollitt seems unable to gasp it -- is about equality, and particularly about equality under the law.

Allan Horsfall

President

Campaign for

Homosexual Equality,

PO Box 342,

London.