To the Editor:
How disturbing and infuriating to read the self-exalted sophistry and thinly veiled homophobia of Noah Hutson-Ellenberg's editorial of April 7 ["There is Nothing Wrong with Expressing Hatred"]. Rather than encourage a campus climate for the freeplay of ideas, Hutson-Ellenberg legitimates hate-speech that closes off discussion, that cowers behind the anonymity of HB mailings, that resorts to crude and offensive bigotry. Rather than encourage dialogue among groups with historically and politically opposed ideals, Hutson-Ellenberg endorses the propagation of hate, provided implicitly that gay students are its target. And why not, you may ask? Well, as Hutson-Ellenberg's superb logic follows, "those responsible for the mailings are certainly not alone in this world in their beliefs that God has damned homosexuals." Well, at least Hutson-Ellenberg is clear about his alliance.
Perhaps the myopia of Hutson-Ellenberg's viewpoint has prevented him from realizing that a murder trial is currently being conducted in the Matthew Shepard case. I wonder if Hutson-Ellenberg would suggest to the friends and family of Matthew Shepard that "All college students should have reached that point where they grow up and stop whining about being offended." Homophobia is not about "whining about being offended;" for Shepard, it meant his death. And for those who fail to see the violence embedded in the power of hate-speech: talk to a gay or lesbian or transgendered student. Talk with them about that ineffable boundary between words and violence, a boundary, at least for certain persecuted groups, which always has the potential to slide into assault or murder.
I started reading Hutson-Ellenberg's letter to the editor by thinking it would be a tome on the necessity of free speech. I ended by thinking of the way to begin this necessary public response to such thinly veiled homophobic remarks. I have not intended to "whine" here: I've merely wanted to inject some reality into the world of Hutson-Ellenberg and to make clear that he's established himself as one who advocates hatred, as one who fails to understand how seriously the gay community must take these pamphlets. I will leave the Dartmouth community as a whole to judge the merits of Hutson-Ellenberg's conclusions.
