The Cincinnati Enquirer

Editorial Page

Oct. 27, 1998

Tolerance should be applied equally

Somewhere in America, a school bus driver was suspended recently for playing a tape of children's Christian music after the children requested it. It seems that children are tired of getting murdered at school by unChristian-like brats, but the federal school system and the parents don't care.

And in other developments, at the funeral of a gay man, presumably killed because he was gay, gays and lesbians exercised their rights as American citizens to promote "tolerance," and condemn "intolerance," while the government passed an "emergency measure" to a outlaw a

Christian minister's right to free speech, because he disagrees with the gay "lifestyle." It seems that gays and anti-Christians have a very fascist definition of "tolerance": They will "tolerate" anybody who agrees with them, and they will not tolerate anyone who allows their children to choose to listen to the Bible or Jesus Christ.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Don't be late for class.

Michael Larkins, Over-the-Rhine
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Oct. 27, 1998

Todd's note: The "Christian minister" this letter refers to is the "Rev." Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. This is the group that protested Matthew Shepard's funeral (see: "How Wyo. town dealt with protests" and the God Hates Fags website produced by the Westboro Baptist Church.) The emergency measure in question did not "outlaw a Christian minister's right to free speech", but rather created a buffer zone between the protesters and the funeral participants. Mr. Larkin mischaracterizes the two events, since one concerned tolerance, and the other intolerance, but he raises an interesting question. How tolerant can we be of the intolerance of groups like Christian fundamentalists, the Klu Klux Klan (and other Christian-based white separatist groups like The Church of Jesus Christ Christian and Christian Identity). Although I believe that these groups have the right to air their intolerance, I certainly would not consider their intolerance to be Christian. None the less, for many Christians, intolerance and Christianity are the same thing.