I am a gay person, and I do not want any special rights at all. I am the kind of person who likes to make my own way and not necessarily have things handed to me on a silver platter, so to speak.

All I want, and most of the people in the gay community that I have spoken with want, is the right to be treated fairly, with dignity and, most of all, with respect as human beings.

I am not sure why certain people feel gay people as individuals have done so wrong that we should be ostracized from the community. Sometimes I feel as though people perceive being gay as some disease that is catching. Niether I, nor no one else I know, would never try to push themselves or their sexuality in anyone’s face.

In closing, I would like to thank those people in my life who do treat all gay people with respect as humans. After all, we are all made up of the same things.

Renee Smith, Lewiston