COLUMN: Hush your mouth, we don’t argue here
Brother T, as I liked to call him, was a bubbly, affable, good-natured Hawaiian with a winsome smile. Cuddly as a teddy bear, and all of 72 years, he was the sort of guy whose very presence seemed to put people at ease.
I looked up to him as a new attendee at my wife’s church. He was, as I recall, a converted Mormon himself – exactly the type of comforting, grandfatherly figure a Catholic “investigator” might hope for. I never did know him all that well, but Brother T seemed like a good, honest, churchgoing man, if ever I’ve known one.
Imagine my surprise then, when I overheard a fellow reporter at The Herald Journal – my employer at the time – mention a familiar name in a conversation with a local police officer.
“He did what?” I asked disbelievingly.
“Molested a 9-year-old,” my colleague replied.
I was shocked. Stunned, really. Wonderful Brother T had suddenly joined the worst category of sex offenders, leaving me with a storm of questions churning in my head.
It only got worse. My colleague’s report triggered a maelstrom of protests from members of our ward. They accused the newspaper of dragging a good man’s name through the mud.
“That girl should have known better,” one angry reader wrote, suggesting that the victim might have been asking for trouble.
I was appalled at the comment. I wanted to argue the matter. But just when contention reared its oh-so-ugly head, all talk came to an abrupt end. Ward members looked the other way.
The subject was over and done with – or was it?
You see, not talking about a problem doesn’t make it go away, no matter what you hear in Utah. If anything, denial only makes matters worse. Relationships – even cordial interactions – suffer under the burden of misunderstanding and pent-up anger.
I don’t know what became of the poor victim of Brother T’s indiscretions, but I’m certain the ward’s absolute refusal to confront the issue head-on made coping a lot harder. The anger inside her will fester as years progress; it may even scar every relationship she has with a man.
Brother T and his overzealous cronies in the ward will survive, but spare a thought for that poor girl, robbed of her innocence at such a young age. Quieting down, and forcing her into silence might have cost her the joys of youth.
The point I seek to make is that avoidance is no solution. It only compounds problems, and in the end, shatters any hope of a desirable outcome.
Consider, for a moment, last semester’s politically charged debate on the necessity of going to war. If you, like me, were among the few antiwar voices raised in protest, you will recall being asked to hush your mouth. Unpatriotic, we were called.
“Stop complaining and support our president, or go back to your country,” one fuming reader wrote.
Unfortunately, I’ve never taken no for an answer. I persisted, only to have a familiar refrain hit the press. The headline was clear: “Stop talking about war.”
I’ll say this at the risk of invoking right-wing ire: Look where that attitude has gotten us.
Now, once again, we’re faced with a touchy issue on this campus, that of gay marriage. This time, let’s not shy away from dialogue. Doing so would be tantamount to ignoring one of the principal benefits of democratic living: The ability to speak our minds.
Hubert Humphrey said it best: “Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.”
Leon D’Souza is a senior majoring in print journalism. Comments can be sent to leon@cc.usu.edu.