Letter to the Editor: Fabrication not path to equality

Dear Mr. Weldon,

I’m a liberal. I’ve never heard of your organization, and I haven’t even heard that much about Ben Shapiro. So, I’m not going to pass judgement on either of those. I don’t have all the information. I would like to say that, as a liberal UF student, I agree with you that all political parties should have an equal presence on campus. That’s not the issue in your letter to the editor. You claim our country is, “not a country dictated by Sharia where LGBTQ people are murdered for being born the way they are,” which is only half-true. Violence against LGBTQ+ people has a long history in the U.S. In fact, there’s an entire Wikipedia page on it. You define hate speech as “the vague term used for anything someone disagrees with or is offensive to someone,” which is crude and immature when put against the dictionary.com definition: “speech that attacks, threatens, or insults a person or group on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.” You’re arguing against conservative students being oppressed, but within your argument you write off the oppression of LGBTQ+ people and you make light of hate speech, a vehicle used to oppress. You’re asking for equality in your letter. Fabrication is not the way to get there.

Samantha Stone is a 21-year-old UF English senior.