Ballet for sissies? No way

Dear Abby

Dear Readers:

A woman signed "Buddy's Mother" wrote to say her 10-year-old son who had taken ice skating lessons for two years had asked to take ballet lessons.

She said she and her husband feared if they let him take up ballet he might turn into a homosexual.

I told her that it took a great deal of manly discipline for a boy to excel at ballet, and to go ahead and give the boy ballet lessons.

The reader feedback was interesting. Some samples:

Dear Abby:

I'll bet Buddy's Mother lives in Dade County, Fla., where they recently voted to deny homosexuals their constitutional rights because of Anita Bryant's crusade to "Save Our Children." I'd appreciate your comments.

Dear S. and C.:

Straight and Concerned

No straight boy ever became gay because he took ballet lessons. Neither did a gay become straight because he joined the Marine Corps.

No one knows what causes some people to be gay and others to be straight. But it's a fact that "our children” do not need to be "saved" from homosexuals. (More children are molested by straights than by gays.)

To use "God," the "American flag" and the emotionally charged cry to "Save Our Children” in an effort to deny employment, housing and public accommodations to a whole segment of our populaton because of their personal sexual preference is outrageous.

: Dear Abby:

Would you believe that before my son became a Golden Gloves boxing champion he was advised to take ballet lessons to improve his footwork? He took them, too. And when he was kidded about it, he laughed harder than anybody because he knew that he was as much a man as the manliest.

Dear Abby:

Champ's Mother

I was shocked when I read the letter in your column from the mother who was reluctant to allow her son to take ballet lessons because it might encourage him to become a homosexual. How ignorant can some people be?

I have three sons. The two older boys excelled

in football, but the younger boy favored ice skating and ballet. I made sure the two older boys did not ridicule their younger brother because of his interest in ballet.

As for ballet being for sissies, I'd like to see a sissy lift a 130-pound ballerina with one hand and hold her over his head. And all those strenuous leaps, turns and jumps take muscle control, coordination and strength the finest athlete would envy.

Ballet does more for a boy's body than football. I'd rather see my son dance than see him carried off a football field on a stretcher with a broken nose and a broken leg!-

Pomona Mom