As found online in the Worcester Telegram 01/18/05


Students get lesson in hate

Letourneau response to letter is revealing

Dianne Williamson

She asked that I withhold her name because she’s only 16 and respectful enough of her parents and school to abide by their wishes. But I wish I could identify this student, because we could use more young people like her who care about their world.

On Jan. 9 I wrote a column about Laurie Letourneau, a local anti-gay activist who said she’s moving to Virginia because Massachusetts has become a “cesspool” of immorality. I acknowledge that the column wasn’t exactly a love letter, as I consider Ms. Letourneau a hatemongering zealot who pushes intolerance to new levels, and I was relieved that someone so angry is no longer comfortable in the Bay State.

The column generated much response from readers, both pro and con. While most of the e-mails were generally approving of the column, a vocal minority called me vicious and nasty for “attacking” poor Ms. Letourneau just because she doesn’t share my views. These critics apparently overlook the fact that, were I prone to attacking everyone who disagrees with me, I’d be writing five columns a week instead of three. I’m uncomfortable with Ms. Letourneau not because we disagree about some issues, but because she seems so comfortable spewing venom and condemnation.

One of the e-mails I received came from the above-mentioned teen, a student at St. Peter-Marian High School. This young lady and five of her friends wrote a letter to Ms. Letourneau last year, after Ms. Letourneau and her group, Mass Voices for Traditional Marriage, organized a rally at St. Peter-Marian to ban gay marriage in Massachusetts. The students were upset that their school hosted the rally because some of their friends are gay, so they decided to put their education to good use by taking the time to articulate their views in a letter.

“How is the sanctity of marriage threatened by two people who love each other?” the students asked Ms. Letourneau in their e-mail. “Even if you disapprove of their relationships, would you also deny their innocent children of rights and protections other children would have simply because their parents are straight? How is this supporting stronger families?”

The tone of the letter was generally thoughtful and polite. At one point, the writers maintained that if Ms. Letourneau wouldn’t even compromise and support civil unions, then she must be anti-family and homophobic, but that’s as strong as it got. They ended the letter by thanking Ms. Letourneau for her time and expressing hope that she would “take these points into consideration.” They didn’t sign their names because, as the young lady later explained to me, they didn’t want trouble with their school.

“We purposely tried to be sickeningly polite,” the young lady noted in her e-mail to me. “At any rate, there was nothing wrong with that e-mail, right? Nothing too offensive or inflammatory?”

Right. But here I include, in its entirety, the response sent by Laurie Letourneau to a group of high school students who had the temerity to disagree with her:

“I shall give this to the Bishop tomorrow. Where are your guts — no name — well you poor sad creatures — don’t you know anything about your religion? Dah — sex outside marriage is a sin!! Try reading the catechism and actually learning about homosexuals — learned behavior — I am fed up with twerps who don’t have the brains to come in out of the rain. Try studying before you shoot your little ignorant mouths off. This will be given to the media and the supt. and the principal and maybe they can actually teach you something. Your (sic) are really sad people and I would be so ashamed as a parent if I had not done a better job rearing children to know that anal sex, disease, multiple partners, rimming, fisting, etc., were wrong!”

Sigh. There’s not much to add here, except to observe that it’s hard to tell from this exchange who is the grown-up and who is the child. And I suppose her mean-spirited missive served a useful purpose, by reinforcing my newfound sympathy for the state of Virginia.

The young lady, meanwhile, an honor roll student at her school, said she was stunned by the response.

“What kind of good Christian woman would list various sexual practices — some of which I had never heard of before, and I’m hardly naïve — in an e-mail to a 15-year-old?” she asked. “Though I hope she’s proud of herself — she has now converted me, my friends, most of my peer group and some of my teachers permanently to the pro-gay marriage side.”

That’s another useful purpose, articulated by a young woman who has the good sense to know when she’s dealing with blind intolerance. So rather than cringe at the vitriol of people such as Laurie Letourneau, maybe we should encourage them more often to just be themselves. Why not? That letter said more about her than I ever could.

Dianne Williamson