Paper shouldn’t try to please everyone

To the editor:

I am offended. The skewed response to Ron Hamman’s column in the May 26 issue prompted that reaction.

Mr. Hamman asked a rhetorical question: Will the Antichrist be a homosexual?” which apparently caused some readers to take offense and feel he was putting down homosexuals and their lifestyle. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Methinks they doth protest too much.”

In the past few years I have read columns and books that proved, at least to those writers’ satisfaction, that the Antichrist would be: the pope, a Muslim, a Jew, and/or members of one or another various fringe groups or nationalities. Maybe the Antichrist will be green with pink spots. So what? If a person or group of people is going to feel offended by what appears in an op-ed column, which is, by the way, usually the writer’s personal opinion, maybe they should examine their own beliefs with a little more critical eye.

I am also deeply offended by Mr. Mitchell’s apology(?) on the faith page of June 6 issue. Previous editors of the Frontiersman have given much leeway to the opinions and replies to them of the readers of the paper, pointing out that opinions expressed were those of the writers. Is the Frontiersman going politically correct now?

One thing I’ve learned in nearly 40 years as a freelance writer/journalist is when the management of a newspaper starts trying to please everyone, the end up pleasing no one.

And losing circulation.

Harry Yost

Palmer