LETTER: Thank you Utah Statesman and Mr. Jarvis
To the editor:
The Nov. 27 edition of The Utah Statesman has a short letter that falls somewhere between bigoted libel and a faithful statement of “God’s Will.” This letter is aptly summed by the title “Homosexuality is a sin.” Regardless of your opinion on this charged matter, you’re likely to be affected in some way by this man’s letter. Personally, I’m quite offended. So I would like to thank The Utah Statesman for printing that letter.
Too often we only read that which agrees with our predispositions. This is a problem that exists outside of USU as much as it exists within it. Our news feeds are filled with material that caters to our political and social biases. We choose friends who share our morals and interests and avoid those who do not. We attend only the churches that agree with our religious beliefs.
Hell, even our Pandora stations get a “thumbs down” when they play something mildly unpleasant. This, in my opinion, is a problem.
Here at USU, our goal should be to embrace our own understandings as well as the hard questions, opposing opinions, novel ideas and genuine desire to become better people than we were yesterday. This cannot be accomplished if we discount information that causes conflict within ourselves and embrace that which requires no reconciliation.
I refuse to say we must accept the world as it is thrust upon us by others. Rather, we must approach uncomfortable or novel concepts with the intention of becoming better. For example, I outright reject Mr. Jarvis’s strongly-stated opinion. This is because his appeal to “our Heavenly Father” as justification seems baseless to me.
At no point does he imply any other authority or even second opinions, other than that of his God and himself. He states no specific examples, but rather generalizes and stereotypes in a way that is too vague for me to take seriously. What he does quite well is inflame and antagonize the general populace. In fact, he does this so well that I am not convinced he really believes his seemingly extreme position.
On those grounds, I reject his appeal.
The purpose of my letter is not to say we should publish the wild opinions of extremists, but rather that we should protect free speech. We should evaluate other ideas based on their merits and act accordingly rather than discounting off-handedly those ideas which do not match with our own.
That being said, Mr. Jarvis, I think you are a bigot.
– Kenny Fryar-Ludwig