LETTER: Lighten up about Republican shirts

Editor, 

This is in response to Leia Weston’s letter to the editor on Wednesday (March 9). Leia, if I could hand you a tissue I would. Although it was expected by a few over-reactors, it’s unfortunate that you view these shirts as spewing “intolerance and hatred” to the point that you’re “disgusted.” I don’t really know what to say, maybe just lighten up.

It’s been a long traditional rivalry, Republicans vs. Democrats. It happens all over the country. College Republicans have decided to use humor (and you’ve got to admit … these shirts are hilarious), to sell shirts in order to raise money to go to Washington, D.C., to help Tom Robins get elected to an executive position for the National College Republicans. I believe these shirts fit perfectly into that rivalry. Oh yeah, and we do practice freedom of speech at this school. Remember those BYU shirts .

As part of our fund-raiser, we’ve extending a challenge to our schools faculty and administration. Any professor or administrator who will wear one of our T-shirts while teaching class will receive that T-shirt for free. They must be willing to let us take a picture of them so we can put it under our “Hero’s of Higher Education” section on our Web site. We feel that by using humor we can encourage conservative professors to “come out of the closet” and be proud of their political ideas, even while being surrounded by possibly hostile co-workers. If any faculty members are willing to take on our challenge, visit our Web site and let us know. To the administration we say, “conservative professors are good and desired, break out of the lemming mentality and diversify your staff.” Our next plan is to lobby the Affirmative Action office to consider political conservatives as a minority that should be promoted under their programs. 

Scott Dewey