The more I read letters written by fellow students in The Daily Collegian, the sorrier I feel for people. I thought Esmond Crooke's letter, "Annual 'Kiss-OUT' event not worth news coverage," Feb. 17, was out of line.

First of all, he should do his research. Gay people do not choose to be gay, they just are. We do not choose to be who we are it just happens. I know many gay people who wish they were not gay because of the negative attention it brings them. They date members of the opposite sex and try to fit in, and it just doesn't work for them. We cannot ask them to cover up who they are to fit the social standard, just like we can't ask Crooke to change his views because they are his.

Every publication that you pick up today, from respectable newspapers to tabloids and magazines, is full of pictures of couples kissing. There was a time when this was taboo. I think people need to open up their minds so that it is no longer taboo for a white man to kiss a black woman or for a man to kiss another man in public.