To the editor:

For the longest time, I used to think there were no funny pages in the Daily. I recently came to discover they DO appear in your paper.

It happens every time a page has the words “Tim Kelly, resident, Davenport” on them. Thanks for allowing me to have a good laugh at the expense of the most uninformed person on the planet!

Unfortunately, though, people like Kelly need to be taken seriously because their words fuel the fire of hate and misunderstanding. I find it amazing that people think they should be able to use their own twisted beliefs to deny equal rights to those who are different from themselves.

If someone like Kelly wants to talk about “special” rights, as he did recently, why doesn’t he ever mention that no group of people would need to ask for inclusion in anti-discrimination laws if it weren’t for the creation of “special” protections for nearly everyone else?

I thought “all men are created equal.” Where is there an asterisk in that phrase?

I don’t believe there is one; so I don’t see how a group of people can be left out.

If one is to argue that gays and lesbians should not be protected equally under the law because their “lifestyle” is a choice, then why protect religion?

Religion is a choice. People change from Catholic to Jewish, Baptist to Buddhist, and any other combination imaginable all the time. Just because YOU don’t, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

I’m sure someone would make the argument that religion never killed anyone as AIDS has killed gays (and drug users, children, hemophiliacs, etc.). I’ll bet relatives of the people who took their own lives in the suicide cult in Uganda would beg to differ.

People can attempt the so-called “conversion therapy” tactics, abstain from same-sex contact and even marry and start a family with someone of the opposite sex.

This does not mean they are no longer gay. Instead, it means they are gay men and women living their lives as straight men and women, while lying to themselves and all around them in order to appease those who do not agree with their true selves.

My appeal is not to change the mind of those who do not understand but to encourage those who do to NEVER give up the fight for equality.

Don’t ever give up as long as you breathe. Silence signals that the far right has won and that cannot be allowed.

Because if they are able to take away basic rights gays and lesbian have as American citizens, who is next? Is it you? It might be.

Matt Schuler

Alumnus

Nevada