Who is being intimidated?
Letter to the editor, Newburyport Daily News | January 23, 2006
To the editor:
I have some problems with your editorial "Web site promotes intimidation" (Jan.10). They are: 1. factual errors; 2. use of incorrect logic; and 3. rebuttal of some points.
I am wondering if anybody at The Daily News has checked out this intimidating Web site? The editorial writer cites the organizers of knowthyneighbor.org incorrectly. Anyone who logs on sees the names Lang and Toleos, not Lang and Westerhoff. I know because Aaron D. Toleos is my son. He grew up in Rowley and Newbury. I have a father's pride in the fine work he is doing to protect families from attack on their legal existence.
Now on the logic topic, you and the editorial writer use a sophomoric logic to initimate that the KTN Web site is akin to outing "physicians who practice abortions." That is a bad analogy. Using the trite "straw man" analogy to destroy another argument really isn't fair. You also used "glittering generalities." Yikes! What parent wouldn't take their kid to task for using generalities such as "Nobody believes them" and "Everybody knows." All you really need is one opposing fact and both of those arguments fail.
I can accept that some people who signed the anti-marriage petition could feel intimidated. But no one is responsible for how they feel, except them. Some people may actually want to talk to them and they would have to proudly defend their very public position, unless they weren't so proud now. Maybe the signers didn't understand that they are taking the place of their legislators on this one. Changing the Constitution isn't easy, and the process requires that the petitioners need to take a somewhat public stand. And I haven't heard of roving bands of gay people attacking petitioners. Oops! I can't use a bad analogy like that. It's as bad as the abortionist one. Gosh, in the old days petitions were posted on a tree in the square for all to see. Don't you think that people should have the right to know who is trying to destroy the legal standing of their family? The Mass. Joint Senate/House Committee on Election Fraud is taking notice. At the session I witnessed that 90 percent of the complaints were against the petition sponsors, the Massachusettts Family Institute, who hired out-of-state workers who may have been mostly motivated by the pay of a dollar a name, so motivated in fact that some told people that they were really signing a petition allowing the sale of beer in supermarkets. The only way people can find out if their identity was taken is by checking the Web site. Isn't this an important public service? There is a lot more to the site than your editorial suggests, like news clips, the blog, and reprinted articles. Their aim is to educate people about how wrong it is to discriminate against same-sex families.
As you correctly state, knowthyneighbor.org has a legal right to duplicate the signatures. Anyone can. It's in the public domain. If you ever check the site out, you'll see lots of information and opposing points on the blog section where things can get heated, but isn't that OK in a democracy? You have clearly drawn where you stand on this issue. You place more value on the feelings of the people who are actively discriminating against same-sex families. How about valuing the victims of their discrimination? Who is being intimidated more, the signers sponsoring a new law or the legally married same-sex couples and their kids?
Ron Toleos
Newbury
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