Nelson 'the face of hate'

By:

Posted: 4/20/05

04/20/05 - To the Cigar,

In yesterday's Cigar, there is an article ("Lack of 'Comity'") by an esteemed colleague in which he rightly chastises a conservative student for a recent article he published accusing homosexuals of being responsible for disease.

This same student promotes a fundamentalist religious agenda in his regularly published Cigar columns. But, my esteemed colleague sees such remarks by the student in question, "as within the confines of acceptable discourse."

My colleague then goes on to chastise an openly homosexual faculty member - who wrote a letter to the Cigar in response to the student's column (April 8, 2005) - for, as he states, "attacking" the student author. He further states, that such "vitriolic attack(s) on a student in a public forum" should not be part of the "exchange of ideas" in an academic debate or in discourse between student/faculty.

I laughed when I read these remarks. The student in question is a fundamentalist Christian and believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible. He has stated that outright in classes, private and public conversations and implies as much in his many columns.

He believes that homosexuals are sinners and should be punished - although, I hope not as in Leviticus where the prescription is that gays should be stoned.

I also laughed because I don't think the faculty member was trying to "exchange ideas" with the student. I suspect that as an openly proud, gay man, the chastised faculty member has had it with such commentaries as that published by the student in question.

Such commentaries cause murder, beatings, humiliation and more for LGBT community members. It was a visceral and fully justified reaction on the part of the chastised faculty member. I would hope that more academics would react with such passion when speaking to their students.

(Obviously, how we speak to them now doesn't work nor generate that mutual respect that the chastising faculty member would see as required in a "genteel" debate.)

Just as academics finally ended "polite discussions" with their students during other battles for civil rights, and moved on to actually DOING something about hate and discrimination, I would like to thank the faculty member who spoke to the offending student/writer with a real passion about his distaste for continued hate directed at gays among other minorities in this country.

Those who would spread misinformation to confuse, lie, and humiliate minorities are the students in your classroom, your pastors, your next-door neighbors. They are the faces of the avuncular Jerry Falwell, or the ever-smiling Pat Robertson. They are also the faces of people who say homosexuals are not good people and urge their continued isolation in the "closets" of society.

The smiling, seemingly innocent faces of the Falwells, Robertsons and this student columnist, who was rightly brought to task, are the faces of hate.

Please don't be fooled by them. The last thing they are interested in is an "exchange of ideas."

Sincerely,

Michael Vocino
Professor
Library and Film Studies