In response to Dr. Dennis Raverty’s June 19 letter, hate speech is bad. It is intended to convey hatred, fear, inferiority or intimidation.

You ought to be relatively familiar with hate speech, since your letter dripped with it, though aimed more at the opinion editor of the Iowa State Daily than any particular racial group or minority.

While you could have simply expressed your obvious dismay for the letter, you chose to attack the decision to publish it and the person ultimately responsible for that decision as “sophomoric” and somehow inferior to you and your worldview that selects those who are entrusted with the First Amendment.

In determining the content of a newspaper, there are difficult choices to be made as to what should be published. Every day such agonizing decisions are made. Of course, the decision to print Margie Phelps’ letter was not and could not have been one of them. As the opinion editor, Ms. Ebaugh is even more compelled to print views opposed to her own, not simply hide them because she finds them offensive, or even in this case, because they are blatantly offensive. Furthermore, rather than being merely an assertion of white supremacy or misogyny like your examples, it was in direct response to Ms. Ebaugh’s column.

If for no other reason, Margie Phelps’ letter needed to be published so that those who were concerned that the Daily was just spewing “the liberal agenda” realized what the alternative choice was.

It’s easy to write a column saying Fred Phelps is a stain on the fabric of society. But if one can write those things without fear of reprisal on the pages of the newspaper, it is utterly meaningless. By allowing Phelps to spew her hatred, more people will be able to realize just what garbage she and her husband are trying to sell.

Dr. Raverty, what you advocate is not free speech, it is speech controlled by the media, far worse than Clear Channel, CNN or Fox News. You are instructing the media to eliminate those views that are “offensive,” opening the door for them to simply silence your own views should they deem them to be offensive to their readers.

You have essentially requested that they not print your letter, as I find it blatantly offensive to my sense of the First Amendment, and for that reason, it is certainly a shame that they did.

Tim Kearns

Alumnus