I am writing to express my sincere disappointment with the recent behavior of some members of the Athens community. Along with a small crowd of others, many of them students, I had the opportunity to witness the quixotic preachings of some evangelical Christians near College Gate. While there are a lot of things I choose not believe in, like God or Hell or Sin or Evil, there is one thing that I do believe in: the fundamental freedom to speak one's mind and peaceably assemble. As evident by the crowd's behavior, it would seem that many in this community do not share this belief with me. As members of the Ohio University community, with ostensibly liberal and progressive tolerance, I expected more from them than heckles and occasional, thankfully unheeded calls to violence. I felt a twinge of shame from the banal and hypocritical volley between these preachers and the crowd. If the crowd felt it necessary to respond to the evangelicals, I would venture to guess that thoughtful, calm and intelligent rebuttals exist; yet, apparently no one in the audience possessed the constitution to find one. I hope this behavior is the exception, not the rule.
Jonathan Leirer is a senior economics and mathematics major.
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Letter to the Editor
