Letter: Persecuted gays

Sir: Ann Widdecombe ("Tory hits out at gays and lone parents", 8 June) complains of gay men benefiting from "the politically correct jargon of equal rights". May I ask her to think again?

My only significant experience of discrimination, as a five-year-old schoolboy in the US, was for being English. It rapidly led me to realise two things. First, however many times I came home with a bloody nose I was still going to be English. Second, that I was not ashamed of being English. I was proud of it and unwilling to give up one jot or tittle of my English idiom to accommodate bullying.

Ann Widdecombe, who does not lack for political courage, will understand how I felt. I am sure many gays who have been victims of discrimination felt exactly that same way. Why shouldn't they?