Letters to the Editor- My response coming after I finish my college apps

Here are all the letters and editorials from the last week regarding
the flag.

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Article published Nov 29, 2005

We need to just let the flag issue die

My letter is in response to the recent letter from Joanie Paris("Guest column was wrong, offensive," Nov. 27) and others who refuse to let the diversity flag issue die.

Typing "rainbow flag" into a search engine on the Internet does not exactly give someone empirical evidence that the rainbow flag belongs solely to the gay community.

Of course, the rainbow flag at Howell High school represents the gay students there. That's because the flag represents all students, whether they be gay, straight, white, black or purple.

I, myself, am a 2003 graduate, and I left that school feeling confident in the level of social tolerance around me. I was very surprised to learn that some members in the surrounding communities were not exactly on the same page.

Joanie Paris wants to "take back" the word "gay" and let the homosexuals use the word "abomination." Sounds pretty familiar to me. The word "abomination" got thrown around a lot not too far back in our history in regards to divorce. Today, divorce is an accepted part of marriage that about 50 percent of our country takes part in.
Makes you wonder what we can expect in the future acceptance of homosexuality when the people who still entertain ideas of perversion and gay recruitment are no longer heard. Bring on the "moral decay" response letters.

Erica Damon
Howell

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Article published Nov 27, 2005

Guest column was wrong, offensive

I am really taking issue with the Daily Press & Argus. How can you print such an article as Doug Norton's guest column ("The truth about Howell's rainbow flag," Nov. 20)?

This isn't an opinion. The author is trying to make you think this is fact. When people read stuff like this, they think it's fact — after all, they read it in the newspaper, so it must be true. Right? Wrong. Norton wrote, "It is ridiculous, however, to maintain that a rainbow can stand as a symbol for such a narrow agenda as gay pride."

Oh, really? I went on the Internet and typed in "rainbow," "flag" in a search engine and found dozens of Web sites. All of them are gay, and all of them claim the rainbow flag as their flag representing the gay agenda.

So much for trying to explain away the "notion" that the rainbow flag flying in Howell High School doesn't represent the homosexuals in that school.

And why have we allowed the homosexuals take a sweet word like gay and pervert it? According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, "gay" means "Showing or characterized by exuberance or mirthful excitement: merry. Bright or lively, especially in color. Full of or given to social and other pleasures, etc."

It doesn't refer to gay as being anything other than happy until the bottom of the list where it's noted as slang for homosexual.

So let's take the word "gay" back, folks. Let the homosexuals find some other word that more describes their way of life — how about abomination?

Howell High School, take down this flag!

You will never get a more diversified flag than that of the American flag.

Joanie Paris
Brighton
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Article published Nov 24, 2005

Get involved with the LOVE group

I am writing in response to a number of articles regarding the gay pride flag and the Livingston Organization for Values in Education (LOVE) group.

After taking time to hear this issue tossed around in the press, I decided to do what is right for all my children, who are in the Howell school system — I joined the LOVE group.

I have to say, after my first meeting, what a great bunch of concerned
parents and students — a real credit for any community.

I cannot say the same for our school board members, who found it offensive to hang our National Motto, "In God We Trust", but had no problem being one of two schools in the United States to hang a gay pride flag.

I strongly urge my fellow parents and any students of the district to join this group.

Tony Robinson
Howell
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Article published Nov 24, 2005

Enough talk about the rainbow flag

Enough is enough about the flag at the high school. We went through this all last year, and now we are going through it again. Why? I know some people have their thoughts and beliefs on the flag, but these kids are not representing it as some people want it to be represented. And, if it did represent the gays, so what? I thought everybody was equal in this school. Guess not. I think that the subject of the flag has been overdone and some people need to get over it.

If the principal doesn't have a problem with it, if the school board doesn't have a problem with it — which they obviously don't, otherwise they would have had it taken down — then it should stay up. These kids are open-minded and have stressed what they feel the flag means to them. Give it up and let it go.

It was hung in a teacher's classroom for a couple years. No one had a problem with it then. Why now?

Sherry Walker
Howell

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Article published Nov 24, 2005

Gays don't have minority status

In response to the column by Doug Norton ("The truth about Howell's rainbow flag"), gays do not have minority status by definition because sexual behavior and orientation do not make a minority. Agendas are agendas.

Howell High School is a publicly funded facility and, therefore, such demonstrations are actually illegal. Your personal property would be the place to hang that flag legally.

I cannot imagine that you are unconcerned about your students.

Jane Thierfeldt
Howell

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Article published Nov 20, 2005

The truth about Howell's rainbow flag

Over the last few months, your newspaper has published several letters
addressing the diversity flag that hangs in a stairwell at Howell High
School. Statements have been made that inaccurately characterize the
significance and origin of this flag.

Several letters, ostensibly speaking for an organization calling
itself the LOVE group, have shown that organization to represent the
exact opposite of what the group's name would seem to suggest.

The facts about the flag have been twisted, and the obvious conclusion
must be reached that this group carries a message of intolerance
toward some students with differences at the high school. Sadly, those
comments act to undermine our efforts to make Howell High School an
inviting and safe place for all students, efforts that gave rise to
the Diversity Club's action to hang the flag in the first place.

First, in regard to the origin of the flag, I can clarify that matter,
since it was originally my flag and I donated it to the Diversity Club
shortly before it was first displayed by that club.

I purchased that flag, which is a rainbow flag, about 15 years ago
from a catalog of products promoting progressive causes. As I recall,
this was around the time that the PUSH organization was using the
rainbow as a symbol for its Rainbow Coalition. It was advertised in
that catalog that the flag stood for tolerance toward people of all
stripes and colors, as it still does today.

I displayed that flag in my classroom for about five years before
moving to a portable classroom where there was no wall space available
for it.

During the entire time that I displayed that flag, it was never once
suggested that I was flying a gay-pride flag or that I was somehow
promoting a gay lifestyle. When asked about its meaning, I explained
that it stood for diversity and tolerance. I never claimed it stood
for gay pride, because it didn't.

When I say this, please understand that I am in no way distancing
myself from support and protectiveness toward people, teenagers and
adults alike, who have discovered that they are gay. All people
deserve to have their natural right to acceptance and safety honored.
It is ridiculous, however, to maintain that a rainbow can stand as a
symbol for such a narrow agenda as gay pride.

I assume that the reason many gay people embrace the rainbow flag is
to remind us all that they are also part of the rainbow of differences
in our diverse society.

If you are looking for the symbol for gay pride and gay rights, then
look to the pink triangle, the symbol originally used in Nazi Germany
to ostracize and mark homosexuals for persecution and elimination and
now used by many gay groups to remind us of where intolerance can
lead. That is the symbol to recognize as standing for the gay
movement, if your desire is to be fair and factual. I fear that is not
the desire of the LOVE group, however.

Let me also remind this group that the rainbow has been used many
times in the past as a symbol for tolerance and acceptance. It was not
too many years ago that the city of Howell, facing a planned
demonstration on the courthouse lawn by the KKK, tied rainbow ribbons
around streetlights and signs up and down Grand River Avenue to oppose
the racist and bigoted agenda of that organization. Was the city
promoting a gay and lesbian agenda then? Absurd!

What was happening then is what is happening now. Actions were being
taken to proclaim that this community intends to be a place where all
individuals can feel safe, honored and valued.

I have nothing against tradition and things traditional; I am a
history teacher, after all. At the same time, I am sadly aware of what
all too many people around the state think are the traditional values
of Howell.

Sadly, we send wonderful students off to universities around the state
where they commonly have to face suggestions of racism when they
disclose their town of origin. This is why it is particularly
incumbent upon us to stand strong and firm for tolerance and
acceptance for everyone.

It is hard not to wonder if the traditions upheld by this LOVE group
are not the traditions and values that have stamped Howell as a center
for bigotry for all too long.

The LOVE group's own pamphlets lump being gay in with being a rapist
or a child molester. They claim that the flag's message is to promote
homosexual activity.

This is absurdly inaccurate. The school does not promote sexual
activity of any kind among its students. We discourage it in every way
possible. To suggest otherwise is to grossly distort the truth.

I would suggest that an intolerant social agenda is being carried out
here by a group that has seized upon the diversity flag at Howell High
School to publicize that agenda. I call upon the LOVE group to stop
using Howell High School as a tool to distort the truth and mislead
the public in an attempt to promote its own agenda.

Doug Norton is a teacher at Howell High School.