A moratorium on letters about homosexuality?

YES: let us move on and broaden our horizons

Dear editor,
Re: A moratorium on letters about homosexuality? (October Anglican Journal). As an avid reader and a strong financial supporter of the Anglican Journal, my overwhelming response to your question is yes!

There are so many issues affecting the Anglican Church of Canada and indeed the Anglican Communion that we need a broader focus in the letters area of the Journal than just homosexuality and same-sex blessings.

I am very tired of reading these types of letters and would like to move on and enlarge my horizons as to what other people think about the issues challenging the Anglican Church of Canada.
M. Rosplesch
Ottawa

Unloving comments

Dear editor,
Yes please, stop the letters on the same-sex stuff. There is never going to be an agreement and I am sick of reading the same unloving comments over and over. By the way, I am the only member of my family who goes to church and though I do have hope that they will someday come to Christ, in the meanwhile I make sure they never read the Journal. It is rare that there is anything in the paper that makes Christianity look even remotely attractive to an outsider. Maybe it’s time there is a major change in the church.
Carol Warner
Milton, Ont.

More important

Dear editor,
Please no more letters on homosexuality or same-sex marriage. Surely we have more important things to write and read about.
Howard & Elizabeth Peto
Blind Bay, B.C

Flogging a dead horse

Dear editor,
Thank you for giving me, and countless other readers, an opportunity to say: “Enough already!” Yes, do the deed: implement a moratorium. Please. The horse is dead, stop flogging it now!
Grenfell Warren
Hamilton, Ont.

One per issue

Dear editor,
I agree that letters must now be curtailed; we have surely had enough of this topic. Writers need to realize that homosexual people are among us, have always been, and will always be. If you are disinclined to stop correspondence on this subject totally, just have one letter per issue on this topic.
John Ridden
Otterburn Park, Que.

Move on

Dear editor,
I am fully in favour of a moratorium on letters dealing with the homosexuality issue. They are repetitive and not really helping towards a solution (if there is one). Let us move on and focus on the many other issues facing the Anglican church and the world.
Jennifer Bellis
Scarborough, Ont.

Nothing new

Dear editor,
Yes! It’s about time. Nothing new has been said in the last 10 years. There are other far more important issues that we need to concern ourselves with. If we don’t constantly have homosexuality issues shoved under our noses, maybe we will stop being so uptight about them.
Dr. Florence Barton
Penticton, B.C.

NO: Do not cut off anyone involved in this debate

Dear editor,Re: A moratorium on letters about homosexuality? A moratorium would be a mistake. Only sunlight and fresh air can heal this festering sore.The Journal should stop feeding this controversy with heavy news coverage and editorials. Deal with things that really matter to Canadian Anglicans: declining membership; our duty to aid the ministry in the North; refugee problems and how we can help; the appalling effect of trendiness in liturgy on worship; church-state relations; inter-religion tensions in the post 9/11 world. Get some balance back in your coverage, and please raise its intellectual level. Do not cut off the debate. Wounds deprived of sunlight and oxygen develop gangrene, and that leads to amputation. I don’t want to cut off, or be cut off from, anyone involved in this debate. Howard R. Eddy Quebec

Censorship

Dear editor,
I think this is usually called censorship. Obviously the issue is important to a lot of people and while many of the comments are repetitive, most of us had no chance to participate at General Synod and letters to the editor are a way of putting our opinions out there.
Mike and Gloria Deane-Freeman
Petawawa, Ont.

Balance, not silence

Dear editor,
A moratorium would not be appropriate in terms of journalistic ethics. So long as the editorial judgment is that it is news and worthy of coverage elsewhere in the paper, that coverage should include letters to the editor. If the Journal is going to cover the story, then the views expressed in the letters to the editor – the good, the bad, and the ugly (and I wish there were more of the first kind!) – are part of the story. A newspaper is about balance, not silence!

While you want to maintain fairness and balance, no newspaper is obliged to print every letter it receives. Perhaps the policy going forward should be that you will print letters that have something new or different to say, either in terms of argument or in terms of personal experience or feelings about the issue.
Ian Henderson
Toronto

Limit published letters

Dear editor,
I am not in favour of a moratorium. It is true that you have faithfully published many letters of varying opinions on these important subjects. However, the issues are of continuing importance and interest.

I suggest that as long as you continue to receive letters on these subjects, you should print two or so in each edition. You might then tell readers the total number of letters you have received on these and other subjects, so we can judge the relative interest.
Jean Gower
Kingston, Ont.

Editor’s note: The Anglican Journal thanks its readers for the tremendous response to its proposal of a moratorium on letters about homosexuality and same-sex blessings. As we continued to receive letters at press time, we will announce a decision in the December issue of the Journal.