Alex Rodeck, Krysta Strysko, Angela Johnson and Carrie Basak recently wrote to the Daily condemning its coverage of National Coming Out Day (NCOD). They were spitting mad that NCOD got more front-page space than Ag Week did.

Is the lack of front-page Ag Week coverage the Daily’s fault or the fault of Ag Week planners?

If that is the case, then why is NCOD the target of those writers’ anger?

The writers have absolutely no comparison to make between Ag Week issues and queer issues.

An entire college is devoted to the interests of agriculture. That college in particular recently was recognized on the front page of the Daily when it received nearly $100 million in donations.

One can choose to study in that college. Queer folks, on the other hand, do not choose to be queer. The campus environment certainly does not welcome queer students with the same warmth with which it welcomes agriculture students.

Agriculture is a staple of this university. A disproportionate percentage of Iowa State students are enrolled in the College of Agriculture. The university devotes enormous sums of money and resources to students who choose to pursue agriculture-related degrees.

Agriculturists have an accepted role in our society. The College of Agriculture at ISU is internationally recognized for the opportunities it offers to agriculturists. Queers have no such opportunities at ISU.

I am aware of the problems that farmers face and, having grown up on a farm myself, care deeply about those issues.

However, being a queer citizen and student at this university, I feel obliged to comment on the jealous rage exhibited by Rodeck, Strysko, Johnson and Basak in their letter to the editor last Friday.

In contrast to the farmer’s role, the role of queers in our society is not well-accepted.

Queer students at ISU are bashed and marginalized daily. I know and can attest to this through my experiences on campus.

Thankfully, no queer students have been murdered at ISU, but such murders have been committed all around the world, solely because their murderers are blinded by hatred and fear.

I have much more recent fear that someday someone may murder me because I’m queer than to fear that someday someone may murder me because s/he finds out that I grew up on a farm.

Hatred and fear killed a queer student in Wyoming last fall. Ripples from this murder will move through our presses for many years to come.

Just last Friday, on the front page of the Daily, an article reported the future of one of the murderers of that queer student. The murderer is incarcerated for life without the possibility of appeal.

Hatred and fear caused the bombing of a London pub catering to queers.

Hatred and fear led to the murder of a young transgendered man named Brandon Teena, just another name on the long list of anti-queer murders.

Hatred and fear cause queers to attempt and often succeed in suicide.

Hatred and fear paralyze queers from a plethora of sources, and the letter in Friday’s Daily is just another iteration of the injustices queer people must face every day.

Queers have a much harder struggle for equality and acceptance than farmers ever will. I encourage these authors to understand the reason behind articles that describe how “poor little gay men and women were so bravely facing the biases against them in everyday society.”

Perhaps an understanding of the world outside of Ag Week will help them make positive contributions to campus-life and society.

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Tom Van Waardhuizen

Senior

English