Monday, October 16, 2006

Submission to the paper.

Recently I was affronted by a post submitted in the “Letter to the Editor” section of my local paper. This post stated that only “religious leaders” should be able to openly oppose homosexuality, and that the “rank and file” should not have this right. The reason this got my hackles up was that this writer was using the same freedom of speech to express his opinion that he wanted to take away from everyone else! I couldn’t imagine someone so stupid as to write something like this without thinking of the potential consequences of such an idiotic ideology, so I felt I had to write the editor myself to correct this egregiously stupid philosophy.

My letter went as follows;
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Although I only saw part of a quote from an editorial in your paper, "There is an argument to be made for allowing religious leaders leeway in criticizing homosexuality. Many religions have prescriptions against the practice and religious leaders should be permitted to publicly defend their religion's tenets. But extending that right to rank-and-file members of a religion goes too far.", I am amazed that anyone in a free country would try to take away anyone else's charter right to freedom of speech (Canadian Charter Right number 2 a & b).

It goes to show that this writer clearly doesn't value the freedoms the charter gives them, and believes if you aren't an authority you should not be able to voice your opinions (which really begs the question: what authority has the writer to say what he did?). I guess if his wish were the case, he would also not be able to voice the opinion he did.

If homosexuals have the right to voice their opinion that their lifestyle is ok, and they do, they have to accept every opposing opinion as well. You cannot say that one group's "rank and file" have the right to speak in advocacy of their beliefs, but that any opposing group doesn't have that exact same right.

This writer really needs a lesson in rights, and how they belong to everyone. If they don't believe that is the way it should be, then I guess maybe they should do as they themselves suggest and keep their mouths shut.

Sincerely
Bob
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I was alerted to this situation by an article from Lifesite news (view full article here). I understand that this was only the writer’s opinion, and he’s welcome to it, but the sheer hypocrisy of it is astounding. If everyone would take a little more time to logically and rationally work out their opinions before they opened their mouths, we would have a lot less people of the out there that look like idiots.

Opinions are like armpits; everyone has them, and a lot of them really stink.
Bob

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