I have come to expect muddled, ill-formed reasoning from Holly Benton’s column. However, she managed to surprise me by reaching new heights, or lows, depending on your viewpoint, of muddleness in her latest column.

Ms. Benton gives us all of the gory details of her trip to an anti-Christian Web site. This site so offended her that she would have us throw out the First Amendment to save her from possible offense in the future! I wonder if she thinks that only Catholics have this right to be protected from possible offense? As a lifelong Atheist, I would be deeply offended if I stumbled upon a Web site for the Catholic church. Does this mean that those sites should be banned from the Internet to protect me? Of course not!

It always amazes me when people think that they should have the right to be protected from views they don’t agree with. The glory, and the dream, of America is the fact that those views are allowed. The Internet is the ultimate expression of that dream. Anyone can log on and express themselves, unpopular views or not. To attempt to censor these views would be a step back for freedom.

I hope that in the future Ms. Benton will think twice before advocating the trashing of our civil liberties. After all, it is those liberties which allow her to print her column every week.

Randy J. Morfitt

Freshman

Philosophy & Computer Science