aspect of the Protestant Reformation. Confusion of the terms is a common misconception (pun intended). Michael Sirmons, Austin, TX Leaving Laudy To the Editor: A recent “BTW” item [Sept.-Oct. 2023 issue] reported that billboards have appeared in Florida and Texas sponsored by Massachusetts with the slogan “Massachusetts for us all,” encouraging red state residents to consider moving to a more welcoming state in New England. The item mentioned that states like Georgia and Arizona might be better places for former red state gays to make an impact. In 2011, after living in Chicago, New York City, and Washington, DC, my husband and I began our retirement in ultra-gay Wilton Manors, Florida. We enjoyed living in the liberal and LGBT-welcoming Ft. Lauderdale area, but by 2020 we found ourselves donating to U.S. Senate and other candidates in Georgia and concluded that Florida was unlikely to become a blue, or even a purple, state anytime soon. We moved to Savannah, Georgia. After we left Florida, the increasingly rabid Governor DeSantis redoubled his abuse of Florida’s large LGBT population in his quest for higher office. Georgia is not yet a gay utopia, but we have some national sway as Georgia voters and our liberal, quirky, and youthful Savannah community gives us hope for the future. Some of our Florida gay friends have also begun heading to friendlier locales. Voting with one’s feet sometimes sends the proper message to tyrants. We’re gladTheG&LR continues to connect us to the larger national LGBT community. Dan Layman & Eric Miller, Savannah, GA Keeping up with the CPUSA To the Editor, Regarding your review of Bettina Aptheker’s Communists in Closets in the May-June 2023 issue, Vernon Rosario does a fair and honorable job in reviewing it. However, a few errors crept into his review: The caption on the author photo states that Aptheker “is a noteworthyCPUSAactivist in her own right.” “Was” is the correct tense of the verb here. She has not been a Party activist for many decades. [Please note that captions are written by the editor.] Some of Rosario’s statements about Elizabeth—Betty (not “Betsy”)—Millard are questionable. And I write, by the way, as an intimate friend of hers from the day I met her in 1957 until she died in 2010. He writes: “She continued a lifelong career in Communist-associated publications and internationalist women’s groups.” If Betty joined the CPUSAin 1940 and left it in the mid-50s following the Khrushchev revelations about Stalin, that adds up to maybe sixteen or seventeen years of Party activism. She did not publish in Party organs after that, nor was she committed to any “internationalist women’s group” after that point. A period of under two decades is hardly “lifelong,” especially if you live to 98! Betty’s 1948 pamphlet was titled “Woman Against Myth,” not “Women Against Myth.” As for the claim that, if anything, the CPUSAbecame “more homophobic [e]ven as the USSR was collapsing,” Rosario notes that at the Party’s 1991 National Convention, “it also debated and lifted its six-decade ban on homosexual membership.” That sounds more like a sign of progress than of deeper entrenchment. I don’t say this to defend the CPUSA’s policy before, during, and for a long time after those years, but logically his statement doesn’t make sense. Indeed, from the outside I was among the Party’s most persistent critics on this score. The CPUSAis fully on board now with LGBT struggles, and publishes regularly on this topic, both on its own website and in the pages of its flagship daily online publicationPeople’s World. Sadly, in some circles with a long memory, the odor of its past history still hovers over it. I for one 6 The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