Op Ed

This page contains information on how to write a letter to the editor, followed by an actual letter to the editor. Your tutorial starts now!

An easy and free method of influencing potentially hundreds of thousands of people re LGBT civil rights is writing letters to the editor of newspapers and select websites. With our opposition churning out lies and crass appeals to bigotry, it is important that we balance the public discussion with mature and factual perspectives.

Letters should be 200 words or less. Some venues restrict letters to that length but even if greater size is permitted, readers will more likely read a succinct letter than a lengthy one. Libel, personal attacks and wild statements must be avoided: leave that to our opposition! Keep focused on the topic and work on getting just one or two major ideas across. Submit only once every two months. Email is preferred by the newspapers so they need not retype -- and probably make errors.

Email your letter to all of the Delaware newspapers, remembering that some Delawareans only read, for example, The Cape Gazette or The Dover Post -- not everybody reads The News Journal. Email them individually: newspapers will be much less likely to print your letter if they see all of their competitors in the address line as well.

Who knows how many Delawareans you will help to enlighten on LGBT issues? And remember that legislators and other decision-makers read the papers too – you can educate and influence them as well. Now just do it!

To the Editor:

Ex-Sen. Jesse Helms’ death on July 4 reminded me of a law of nature: adapt or die. Many dinosaur species became extinct when they could not adapt to climatic change, but not all did. Scientists believe today’s birds are descendants of dinosaurs: they successfully adapted and survived.

Helms had the choice to forsake his misogyny, racism and homophobia, but to the end he vigorously opposed and blocked equality legislation under the pretense of religion. In opposing a nominee for Under Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, he once infamously snarled, “She’s a damn lesbian…working her whole career to advance the homosexual agenda. Call it gay-bashing if you want to. I call it standing up for traditional family values.” No surprise, when Helms died George Bush referred to him as “a kind, decent and humble man.”

Delaware has more than its share of good-old-boy Dixiecrats in state government whose choice not to evolve isolates them and makes them look increasingly anachronistic – not to mention hateful. We can either re-elect them to office or we can elect progressives like Jack Markell. We can stagnate or we can evolve and push for social justice and environmental responsibility. Our choice.

Toward equality,

Douglas Marshall-Steele