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Should Mayor Reed apologize on behalf of the city for the Eagle raid?
Re: “Mayor Kasim Reed, Atlanta Eagle attorney have testy exchange at LGBT town hall forum” (www.thegavoice.com, July 23)

I have to side with the mayor a bit on this one... even if the parties to the current suit were to all agree in writing that they would drop the suit for an apology, that would not bind the others from the Eagle raid from suing and using the mayor’s words of apology to prove guilt and get a huge legal win against the city. How responsible is it to the “gayest city in America” to subject the city to a multi-million payout to one person in order to save a few thousand earlier. That would hurt us all as well. (Not to mention the rates the city pays for legal insurance could skyrocket based on such moves being made by the mayor.) Is the goodwill worth the risk? Reed is putting the good of the city above his chances of re-election.

So where is Shirley Franklin while all this investigating is going on? Had this not been a gay bar there would have been a shit storm of lawsuits and police firings! Why is it gay people are always expected to just shut up and turn the other cheek? Oh, the poor city might get sued, boohoo. Perhaps if the city wasn’t not wasting millions on bloated departments run by incompetent officials it could settle this and move on without issue.

Before relationships can begin to mend, the LGBT community needs to see actual proof that the people responsible for that raid have suffered substantial punishment for their part in that violation of citizens rights! That would be something considerably more than a meaningless “reprimand” in their file. Demotions and firings are probably appropriate depending on individual guilt. There also needs to be some level of conviction that incidents like this will not happen again.

I thought that was quite straightforward on the mayor’s part. If indeed an apology from the current mayor can stop this, then it is in Grossman’s purview to state that clearly and mean it. Alas, attorneys seem to have a really hard time talking in truth — and politicians are usually right there with them.

Slavery happened centuries ago and presidents from this era have said they were sorry about that. Why can’t the current mayor say he is sorry for past mistakes and be done with it? How much money would that cost the city?

Many to fault for the ongoing HIV epidemic
Re: “Health blog: The Top 10,” about Atlanta being ranked 8th in HIV infections" (www.thegavoice.com, July 29)

We all know there are a lot of things — and people — to fault. Younger guys often think they are immortal and don’t use even common sense precautions when doing anything (probably because their pre-frontal cortex isn’t fully developed yet); some guys want the attention that they believe becoming HIV positive might give them; some guys don’t use safe sex because homophobia (especially in their own family) drives them to not care if they get infected and die (suicide by sex, like suicide by police officer).I think a lot of drug companies are at fault, too. They posterize and make the disease sound so manageable (which it is) and glamorous (which it is not).

Sadly, people haven’t seen anyone struggle with the disease. The “youngins” think it’s all one damn big cocktail party. They haven’t seen the death or known anyone to die from it yet. They think it’s a pill in the morning, a pill at lunch and a sensible vodka martini for dinner. Slap, slap — to them, for thinking that and to society for allowing them to think that way.