The day I started kindergarten in 1953, I learned a lesson.

The teacher asked us to print our names. As I wrote, she swooped blackly on me, sat me next to a full-sized poster of the devil, and tied my left hand to the back of my chair. She said only the devil’s children write with their left hands. Later that day, my father enlightened the teacher so that I did not need an act of the Legislature to grant me the “special right” to sit with no hand tied.

The same is not true for others: “The mood in this country is not to have special rights for homosexuals,” said Paul Volle, executive director of the Christian Coalition of Maine, in “Gay rights revisited.” (Jan. 16) Is housing a special right? Why does anyone need a special law to obtain equal access to housing?

Unfortunately, many people do need a law to protect their right to obtain something as basic as housing because discrimination against gay people is legal in Maine.

And here is the lesson I learned: Just because something is said by a good person, it does not follow that he is right. I am certain Paul Volle is as convinced that he is doing the right thing as was that nun many years ago; however, it is not the business of man to determine who shall not be able to fulfill basic human needs.

Pat Foster, Dixfield

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