Help me respond to this LTTE please.

[Mountainman]

The following LTTE was in the Santa Maria Times this morning. Santa Maria is about 150 miles from Oxnard. I find the letter very disturbing and think it should never have been printed.

http://www.santamariatimes.com/opinion/

The letter:

The gay agenda and boy's death



Fourteen-year-old Brandon McInerney's slaying of 15-year-old Lawrence King at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard was provoked by Green's sexual overtures.

Nowhere has there been a revelation of the Gay Straight Alliance group's role in encouraging Green for his overt demonstrations to publicize his alleged sexual preference.

Educators' moves to aggressively quell tensions between the two boys should have brought the matter to the policing civil authorities before the tragedy occurred.

Green was a pawn of the homosexual activists in the area. His death and Green's probable incarceration is a direct result of the pressures brought by homosexuals to advance their sexual agenda.

Otis Page

Arroyo Grande

May 12, 2008


On edit:
We had jounior college stodent shot this past week. A captain of the football team was shot and a large part of the commumity was really upset. I would like to contrast the two shootings.



Murder victim was AHC athlete

Sudlow, who stood 6 feet, 3 inches and 275 pounds, was an offensive lineman for Hancock in the 2006 and 2007 seasons.

The sophomore was a team captain for the Bulldogs last season, said Tom Mott, interim athletic director for the college.

Sudlow was also second team all-conference in the All-Western State Conference's Mountain Division.

Sudlow attended South Shore High School in Brooklyn, N.Y. He had recently signed a letter of intent to go to Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tenn., on scholarship. The Tigers play in Division 1 AA.

Mott described Sudlow as a respected team leader.

“I think every student athlete that comes to Hancock has the goal of putting in time there and moving on, and he accomplished that goal,” Mott said of Sudlow's decision to transfer to Tennessee State.

http://www.santamariatimes.com/articles/2008/05/06/news/news02.txt

[unpossibles]

1. wow. That is horrible.

I wonder if the author also blames rape victims for thinking they have the right to express their sexuality.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Only if they dress sexy.

Then OF COURSE it's the girl's fault. Everybody knows that!

[Jackpine Radical]

2. I think you got some names tangled up--I can't follow the story.

McInerny killed King due to Green's sexual overtures?

[Mountainman]

5. I copied the letter as it was written, It's not my writing.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Thanks. I assume "Green"=King, and that the writer

got sidetracked by the name of the school.

Just further evidence of how his brain neurons are wired, I guess. Anyway, his logic is pretty easy to ridicule, as you can see from the responses to your OP.

[crim son]

3. Holy crap.

Twisted logic. You might want to suggest that being at war encourages kids to believe it's okay to kill their "enemies." Horrible story.

[Kajsa]

6. " Sexual agenda".

This term drove me crazy for the longest time.

WTH is a " sexual agenda" ?!?

until- I deciphered it was code ( in the homophobic lexicon) for

the fight for the GLBT community to have equal rights under the law.

This letter was written by a paranoid homophobe.

Hopefully, it was done to show the ludicrous lack of reason and common sense
in his line of thinking.

I am at a loss as to how to respond.

Does the author even understand equal rights under the law?

[XOEnterprises]

8. Damn.

That's some twisted logic right there. I would, if you want to use to two murders side by side, point out that they're both children and it doesn't matter what their sexual orientation is. Both sets of parents are going to be grieving for a lost son, no matter what. Why should on be grieved for more than the other?

Honestly, I don't think you have room to explore just what's wrong with using the terms "sexual agenda" and "alleged sexual preference" (that latter sounds like it's a crime) in the tiny space allotted in most newspapers for LTTE. You'd need the entire newspaper to explain that to the 'phobe.

[Mountainman]

9. In contrasting the two murders I want to talk about the adulation for athletes and the

bigotry toward gays. Both are learned emotions but opposite each other.

[XOEnterprises]

11. True.

Then just say that. Something along the lines of "Two children were murdered this (insert time frame), but one is being mourned by the entire community because he was an athlete while the other is being defamed/denounced/looked down on for being homosexual." I don't know how much more you can explain it without having being mercy to an editor trying to make it fit and/or rejection by the newspaper.

Hope that helps!

[swimmernsecretsea]

10. Santa Maria? That's my hometown! We used to call it "Sand Up My Rear"

So glad I moved. I'd like to respond but I'm working and I'll need a moment to think of a response. It's a bit hard since obviously the writer not only has the facts mixed up in his head, but isn't able to express his ideas either. I'm kind of getting that this person is a bit disturbed, also. For all of those reasons, I don't tend to respond to a message of this sort, so it's hard to make a decision about doing so now, but since there is a lot of "blame the victim" mentality regarding Larry King, I feel it's important.

[Musty]

12. The "I killed him because he came on to me" excuse was

used by three murderers here in SF, NM to defend why they killed their victims. The juries didn't give much credence to their excuses. You could add, in your response, that if people were allowed to be killed just because they made a pass at someone, we'd have bodies all over the streets, and bars would filled with corpses! It's patently absurd to "excuse" murder because someone thinks you're hot.