Rattner correctly points out that the public record of the arrests can literally ruin their lives. Witness a Belmont High School swim coach who resigned in the wake of the incident.

It is truly unfortunate that the coach lost his job. But Harvard cannot be responsible for the homophobia of others. It can and must be responsible for the security of its property and students. So the issue comes down to whether sex should be allowed in Science Center bathrooms.

SOME of the arguments against the arrest policy are transparent veils for defending the practice of anonymous public sex. Rattner and Barrios write that bathroom sex is a "victimless crime" and that the University's opposition is caused by a "selective sense of decency"--as if there were some inalienable right to have sex in public.

Gay activists are wrong to imply such a blanket defense of anonymous sex in public places. Such action only reinforces the vicious stereotype of homosexuals as depraved.

The Science Center arrests have revealed that Harvard and Cambridge need to better train their police forces to be made more aware of methods of transmission of AIDS.

But they also reveal that campus gay activists damage their efforts to win much-deserved support when they attempt to protect sex in the Science Center bathroom, a practice very few people can defend.