Dear editor:

I am writing about your coverage of a Virgil man's “Celebrating our traditional marriage” sign (July 8) and your July 29 follow-up story, “Is it hateful? Experts talk about 'traditional marriage' sign.” 

This whole issue has become a matter of division among the NOTL population, mainly through the agressive and self-interest efforts of Jordon Wiliams, who seems to feel entitled to use public property by rainbow painting a crosswalk and benches in a stunt to publicize his own stated agenda.

This is done without regard for the many others who may not agree with this idea and by The Lake Report in its ceaseless and biased promotion of his rights, without regard for others.

The long-winded and often vague and unrelated comments on hate trom your experts are of limited value in this controversy. They are presumably not taxpaying residents of NOTL, who form the majority opinion. This collective opinion is seen as being of greater local importance than those of the distant experts.

To some people, the Virgil sign may represent hate, while others do not see it that way at all and do not regard it as a form of intolerance but as a direct response to the  bias, agressiveness and suggestions of hatred as mentioned above.

Hate is often used by certain groups as a weapon to put those who may disagree with a viewpoint on the defensive, even when hate does not exist. It is a word often used, just as the words inclusivity and diversity are.

These words, it seems to me, are used when it is seen as beneficial to a group that, while professing to be otherwise, sees itself as exclusive and not allied to any visible minority (another publication on July 21 contained a clear example of this). Neither word is ever given a precise meaning.

We have many different minority groups in this country, which can be considered a form of diversity in itself.

In turn a similar diversity can be found in each of these groups, although I doubt they have much interest in the debate concerning traditional marriage or the attempt by some to connect this to a form of hate.

Derek Collins

NOTL