To the editor:

I do not think the Daily was wrong to have given prominence to Awareness Week, but I do take exception to the tone used by Jerrett and Godar on April 7 in responding to the letters to the editor.

Just because some students disagreed with the Daily’s policy is no reason to call their reasons for doing so “hate-speech.”

It has become fashionable to label anti-gay speech as “hate-speech.” Surely, if the policy of the Daily is to promote tolerance and respect for different view points, their speech should not degenerate into derogatory labeling of the language used by their opponents.

What justification is there in Jerrett and Godar using epithets like “Cave-men,” “sloped foreheads,” “cracker,” “hate-mongers,” “license-to-hate” and “gay-haters?”

Jerrett and Godar insinuated perspectives that were not borne out in the letters. Godar deliberately misquoted Peris Chamberlain.

What Peris said was, “gayness-week was only helping the masses think less of them.” He did not say homosexuals are bringing hatred upon themselves.

I found the title given to Rev. Spitz’s letter on April 4 offensive. “The Bible says, God says …”

The conclusion I come to is that the editor is intolerant of anti-gay speech, hence his desire to ridicule comments made by the public and to stigmatize those who hold contrary views. As Nate Hurst points out, how come the violence inflicted by homosexuals does not get reported in the Daily?

Free discussion about the merits of a gay lifestyle cannot take place when opponents of such behavior are abused in print.

Having said that, I may also say that one can empathize with an alternative sexual lifestyle only if one has friends among that community. It is easier to believe in God’s love for gays if your friend is a homosexual.

Acceptability comes from friendship and understanding of “the other,” not in stereotyping or labeling the opposition.

Though I have homosexual friends, my feelings towards this lifestyle is ambivalent. I love my friends, but I do not approve of homosexuality.

For some years now, I have been involved in fighting against pedophiles. In my country, 30,000 young boys are sexually abused, usually by white, adult, male homosexuals though the trend is now changing.

Initially, pedophiles were mostly Western tourists, perhaps even Americans, who made trafficking in young children for sexual pleasure a lucrative industry.

The work against pedophiles that my friends and I were involved in, was sometimes dangerous as western homosexuals had the power they needed to inflict violence on us.

I believe in fighting against oppression and to me, children are the most innocent of victims. Now that I am in the United States, I realize that it is unfair to hold American homosexuals at Iowa State responsible for the victimization and violence that perhaps some of their countrymen, have done in my country.

I realize that homosexuals are also fighting for acceptance in their own societies.

Nevertheless, if one fears and demonizes one’s opponents, what hope is there for reconciliation with people whose opinions one detests?

What hope is there for civil liberty? I am against violence perpetrated against homosexuals for their lifestyle.

As an Asian and a man who understands discrimination very well, it makes it very hard for me to write this letter. In my heart of hearts, I know if there is no freedom of speech for everyone without fear of assault and violence, there is freedom for none.

Shantha Pieris

Graduate student

Public administration