Dearest Mr. Keilor,

Please don't drag the rest of us including the gay community down with you just because you are miserable. Breathe some fresh air, go out for dinner with friends. Drink a bottle of nice wine. Take steps to try and make yourself happy. What makes you think that parents should stand "...like smiling, helpless mannequins in the background." Everyone deserves a rich and fulfilling life for gods sake. You think your kids want you to be unhappy? Don't be such a martyr. Kindly do us a favor and get over yourself.

Yours,

- Portia

Just as muddled as his Prarie Home Companion movie.

Both are a mess because he wants to have it both ways - sincere homespun sentiment AND hipster irony - and fails at both as a result.

Doesn't this man have an editor, or is he just too big now for anybody to tell him "no"?

Mr. Keillor is entitled to his opinion, of course, but as a gay man who has always enjoyed this man's work, the opinion itself comes as a rather depressing surprise.

Worse still - this piece is already being quoted on sites like Beliefnet.com to buttress their own rabidly anti-gay sentiments. Like they needed any help in that area.

So thanks a lot, Garrison. Nice to know where you stand. I guess.

Mr. Keillor -

I am a 26-year-old gay male. I have enjoyed listening to "A Prairie Home Companion" since I was a child. Your program typically may not appeal to those in my demographic, but I've always enjoyed your humor, the skits, and the music. I am also aware of your antipathy for the current GOP -- something else on which we are often in agreement.

For all of the reasons above, I find myself extremely shocked and disheartened (dare I say offended?) by your statements about gays and gay marriage. Some of your comments simply played on old, tired stereotypes; some of your comments bordered on becoming slurs against gays. Neither my partner nor I are "sardonic fellows." We don't talk with lisps. We own a solid-color sofa, and we have a border collie (not really a small, weird dog). We're definitely not flamboyant. (And, just in case you think I worship "campy performers," you should know that my musical taste extends mostly to classical, with some early twentieth century jazz thrown in for good measure.) To tell you the truth, I really don't know any gay people who do fit the standards for gay behavior that you set out in your article.

My "partner" and I have been in a monogamous relationship for the last five years -- a relationship of the same duration, so far, as your second marriage, I might add. We have no desire to become parents, but we would avail ourselves of the opportunity to marry if marriage were an option for us in Ohio. Extending the rights of marriage to gay and lesbian couples is only sensible; it would simplify inheritance rights, hospital visitation rights, property ownership, and, yes, adoption rights should the gay or lesbian couple choose to adopt.

And as an aside: Nature may not care about the emotional well-being of older people. I'm not entirely sure that Nature really cares about anyone. Nevertheless, for many years, my mother and I were the principal caretakers for my grandparents, and I most assuredly did care about their emotional well-being.

A disheartened fan,

G. Coursey

Upon reading this article, reading Dan Savage's blog response, rereading the article, reading the comments, and reading the article yet again, I think Mr. Keillor meant this to be funny. However, it's not. There are enough ridiculously hypocritical conservatives writing pieces that sound exactly like this. I've gotten used to taking even the most ridiculous at face value.

Mr. Keillor has a very good point about how much the government is spending on things most people can figure out with common sense. Perhaps we should be spending money to convince ourselves that gay marriage and immigration are not harmful to children and to our country.

If this was indeed his point, though, he failed. Miserably. Whether or not he intended to, Mr. Keillor has insulted a lot of people and written something that could be taken just seriously enough to be used as a banner for harming those people more. I want to hear Mr. Keillor's response to all the foofoora that's sprung up around this article.

I've been a Garrison Keillor fan for over 24 years. I know this because my daughter is 24 and when she was a baby I danced her around the room during his show. When she was five she would bow at the end of each song. Now, my 10 year old son says that he wants to hear the show "we always listen to in the car."

He says that from the back seat to his two moms in the front seat. Yes, two people with similar body parts who love each other and love him are his parents. The kind of parents who go to his school award shows and frame his certificate for reading. The kind who spend an hour on Saturday afternoon having "silly time", a recognized family holiday. The kind of family where he is, as I write this, gathering the ingredients for a wisdom potion while my parter, oh she of the similar body parts, feeds the rabbits and ponders tonights dinner (I don't think it will include the rabbits).

I was confused when I read Mr. Keilor's article this week. Was it intended as satire that just failed miserably? Could he really not understand the hurt and the harm in what he wrote? Did Salon not get it? Then, I read his column from June, 2005 and realized that no, this is not satire, this is bigotry pure and simple. Stereotypes, generalizations, belittlement, these are the tools of the intellectual bigot and Mr. Keillor has employed them against my family, in the name of his concern for children.

Gays and lesbians have children from choice not from some midnight boozy forgetfulness or the failure of birth control as some few heterosexuals do. Every child of a gay or lesbian household is carried in the knowledge that he or she was sought out or created out of love and concern for the future. How many children of heterosexuals, including Mr. Keillor's can clearly say that?

I am appalled at Mr. Keillor and his bigotry. I am terrifically concerned about the magazine that I have suppoorted for two years-with my money and with proselytizing to nonsubcribers. And now, I find in the pages of this magazine the very bigotry that threatens my family.

I've never written to Salon before. Sometimes I agree with your writers, sometimes I deeply disagree. I like that, growth is in the disagreement. But not in the bigotry.

After years of listening and caring about Mr. Keillor I intend to sever my ties to him, his writing and his program.I now understand that Lake Wobegon contains no gay people or only those gay people who fit the nastiest of bigoted stereotypes.

However, even those stereotypes fail to recognize the great strength of a flaming gay man. They brought us to Stonewall, they have spoken the truth when many of us were too frightened to do so. Their very nature has always placed them on the battlelines of gay independence and Mr. Keillor has placed them there again.

Jackie Griffin

Subscriber to salon.com