I was more insulted by Mr. von Uhl’s inability to maintain a consistent theme throughout his Nov. 18 letter than by his comments directed at me.

I haven’t decided if he was condemning me for being bisexual or condemning others for attacking homosexuals; both views were expressed by him in the same letter.

I also question the motivation for his bitter anti-farmer diatribes.

One objection in my original letter was to what I felt was biased overexposure of the gay issue, because there are other newsworthy issues. Judging from what I have read lately in the Daily, the staff is expanding their reporting.

I AM personally inured to name calling, but I do object to liberals taking offense when conservatives use name calling but then practicing the same offense!

Before slapping a label on me and accusing me of “perpetuating a bias,” you’d better ask my son how many times and for how long I reamed him out for the use of the word “fag” in his group’s letter. Using the common vernacular, name calling sucks, whatever political side one occupies.

As for von Uhl’s misdirected need to label me “heterosexual” for fear I’m “perverse” or “led astray by demons,” please be reassured that after many prayers and conversations with God (yes, the communication still goes both ways, despite rumors that God is dead or doesn’t communicate with mankind anymore), I know where He stands.

I’ve been to the Light once during a life threatening bout with pneumonia, and I know I’m headed back there when my life ends.

Just as a heterosexual priest can practice celibacy and still lust in his mind, I, as a bisexual choosing a heterosexual lifestyle, practice celibacy where women are concerned but still lust once in awhile. I usually ask God’s forgiveness and strength to overcome the feeling.

We’re ALL sinners guilty of lying, adultery, sexual lust, greed, etc.

As a Christian, I repent of my sins every day, whatever they may be, just like the Christian man who lusts after a woman and asks forgiveness for his impure thoughts. (President Carter, you still out there?) I am NO LESS FORGIVEN for my particular sin.

Before stoning me based on terminology rather than my life, reread John 8:1-11, wherein Jesus admonishes the Pharisees who are trying to entrap him into approving the stoning of an adulterous woman with “You who are without sin, cast the first stone.” The lesson doesn’t stop there.

Christ counsels the woman who stands in fear before him, “Neither do I condemn you, go now and leave your life of sin.” I made a personal choice to avoid what I felt was a life of sin, dedicating myself to serving my god and Savior.

I am not perverse, nor am I condemned, just as my fellow heterosexual believers who repent are not condemned, despite their daily lapses into sin. If you MUST label me because you have an overwhelming need to compartmentalize people, call me a “recovering bisexual.”

However, I prefer “servant of God,” “Mom,” “poet and writer” and “cat lover” because those words describe my life’s priorities more than any word describing my sexual preference.

As for farmers, if you don’t understand the difficulty of the arena in which they operate, in a profession often passed down from generation to generation, fighting weather, government, and stereotypes as hayseeds, then you are wearing blinders. Their issues ARE “quality-of-life” issues — without the food they produce, we would have NO life.

As a resident of the San Joaquin Valley, the most productive agricultural area in the world, I recognize that we would be nowhere without our farmers and ranchers, around whose agri-business the rest of our professions in the area revolve.

Finally, if anyone thinks that farmers have not been persecuted, express that view to my elderly father, whose four draft horses used to pull the plow on his family’s potato farms in the 1930s were poisoned and killed by a neighbor simply because they belonged to “those Russian farmers” next door.

This is not just a gay versus farmer issue — unfortunately, the focus was drawn away from equal coverage to a controversy about lifestyles.

Let me reiterate my original letter: The world is beating EVERYBODY up out there. It always has, and it always will. Bias is universal, extending beyond gays and ags.

We can play victims and demand entire attention on our particular group, or we can each get our fifteen minutes of the spotlight, then keep on plugging away, quietly making our way in this world based on our own merits.

The Daily has a responsibility to maintain a reporting balance; that’s just what many of us were simply seeking.

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Janice Hastillo Brown

Alumna

Porterville, Calif.