Regarding the May 1 article " Sean Penn 'Milk' star is cream of the crop — again": Hollywood used to celebrate people like Mahatma Gandhi and Oskar Schindler — not men such as Harvey Milk, who encouraged a reckless sexual lifestyle that has wrought so much disease and death.

According to a Daily Mail piece on Jan. 23 of this year, "Milk was wildly and notoriously promiscuous," but this fact is conveniently left out of the film. Milk no doubt encouraged other gays during the 1970s to live the same way. At the very least, he failed to discourage them.

The result? An AIDS epidemic that has left a horrible trail of suffering and death. Is Harvey Milk, therefore, really the sort of "role model" that Hollywood should hold up?

As for AIDS, it's "hip" to blame institutions like the Catholic Church, but this is utterly ridiculous. Who has ever caught AIDS by practicing abstinence until marriage? Let's instead put the blame where it belongs — on people who push an irresponsible, promiscuous sexual lifestyle.

jennifer kim