Oh, I agree with you on that! What made Stalin, Lenin, et al such dangerous zealots wasn't their atheism, it was their siege mentality, their belief that the world had to mirror their image of it. While they may have espoused atheism, for them it was part of their ideological baggage -- it was pure dogma, in fact -- very close to religious zealotry, all but the same thing in essence. And that notion of ideological purity had thousands of years to develop in the practice of religious purity, as you say. The minority of reigious people who opted for being reasonable, to being open to other ideas, to being tolerant, usually ended up as heretics always do: despised & dead, slain by dogma.

My wife and I were married in a judge's office, in a non-religious ceremony. We're not "civilly united." We're married. We've made our committment to each other, declaring it to the worlds. MARRIED.

And any gay couple who wants to be married rather than "civilly united" is entitled to it, just as much as we were.

And we'll see no difference between their marriage & our own, because there'll be none.

I understand the misgivings of some posters here, but think they're misplaced in this instance. LW, my situation was not unlike yours as a young man: shy, insecure, inexperienced, and not particularly happy with my lot in life. There were two women who played my Beatrice during those years, and I remain grateful to them for helping me to find myself.

My wife knows about this distant part of my past, just as she knows that she's the only woman in my life now & forever. She was with me when I briefly met one of these women 30 years later at a high school reunion -- and nothing more than a warm, nostalgic glow came of that, with our separate lives once more going their separate ways.

I think that those of us who were shy, sensitive, insecure in our youth tend to idealize the women who became (or we made into) guiding stars. It's an almost chivalric, utterly Romantic response ... and I don't see anything so wrong with that, as long as we have the sense to understand that it isn't & never was objective reality.

So should you send that letter? For now, I agree with some previous posters -- write it, pour your heart into it, and set it aside for a good long while. It may be that Carla would be delighted to hear that she did so much for you; it may be that you're the last person she wants to hear from at this point in her life. You just can't know.

So wait.

Do a little self-analysis. Mull over what Carla meant, and how much of your feeling is a response to her memory & her idealized image, and how much is about the actual person. Perhaps do a little Jungian reading about the Anima, and discover just how powerful this concept is for the boys that we were, and the men we became.

And however open you are with your wife, however much she's mad eit clear that she's fine with your feelings -- pay extra attention to her now, and remind yourself all the more of how much she has shaped your life. I don't doubt Carla's effect on you at a crucial time -- but it's the life you've built with your wife that truly matters. Carla was a vital cornerstone, but everything since then is the rest of the cathedral, you know?

The point is that in the current world of viciously aggressive manly manhood, "gay" is the worse thing you can call a boy. Any visible warmth, sensitivity, joy equals weakness to the hordes of the insecure, who soak up this fear-stoked worldview from birth. As long as someone else is being tormented, you're safe for the moment. And homophobia is a major part of this puerile crap.

It isn't just the schools, although they certainly do their part in preparing children for the "real world," i.e., the strong shall devour the weak & nobody gives a damn, you're either a winner or a loser, etc. The entire culture is like this, and growing moreso with each year.

As for those who naively believe that a child has to have some serious emotional problems in order to contemplate suicide -- don't you think that being mercilessly savaged day after day after day is enough of a problem? Have you forgotten just how seriously & intensely a child experiences the world? How awful, how completely & horribly awful childhood can be if you're a designated target?

And I'm pointing out that IT DOESN"T MATTER. What matters is the horrible contempt directed at this boy, and the fact that "gay" was the worse thing they could call him, because they'd already learned that it's an especially powerful & sadistic weapon to use against the helpless. They learned it from a pathetic world of scared little boys playing at being grown men -- terrified bigots, all of them.

You said it eloquently.

"There is a clear and intentional implication that the child was a homosexual. He wasn't."

There's no such implication. What's clearly stated is that he was called gay. And it was clearly regarded by both his tormentors & by the boy himself as a horrible thing to be called, sad to say.

You're being disingenuous at best, Reallynow. This is a pointless back-and-forth, since you insist on misreading what's plainly stated in the article.

One last time:

The point is that homophobic insults are used to bully anyone chosen as a victim, whether or not the child in question is actually gay. And such bullies make life a living hell for their victims. And they absorb their homophobia from the culture at large.

End of point.