Despite being one of those gay men who took offence at Peter Willows's slur, I acknowledge that Jay Nemes makes a good point: that the councillor simply made a "silly" remark which hardly justified the involvement of the police and CPS (The Argus, December 12).

Silliness should not involve an altercation with the law.

Tony Bingham (Letters, December 15) may also feel the existence of such a law limits free speech. But neither of these views excuses the fact that a crime was committed, probably a relatively trivial one, but an offence nevertheless.

It offended me far more that Mr Willows holds the antiquated and utterly invalid belief that gay men have a sexual interest in young boys.

That anyone in a public and influential position should maintain such preposterous beliefs is a serious offence, even if expressed on a relatively private occasion.

I would suggest to Mr Bingham that freedom of speech has its limits.

It is simply inappropriate to make wilfully malicious and offensive remarks about any section of society to which one does not oneself belong, simply because they are different by race, age, religion or sexual orientation.

I wonder if Mr Nemes or Mr Bingham would have defended the Jewish gentleman who came up to me a few years ago after we had both visited Dachau. My visit was a tribute to the many gay men who had died at the hands of the Nazis.

Having been fairly traumatised by the experience, I was even more so when this Jewish survivor, on discovering I was gay, said: "You lot deserved it."

Was this Jewish man just being "silly", too? Should his freedom of speech have been limited?

  • Dr M B Johnson, Kevin Gardens, Brighton