I saw today's issue of the Alligator at work. I have to ask, are you proud of the front-page photo? Did someone at the Alligator get off on publishing it? Why are you people at the Alligator constantly harassing Christians? That seems to be a popular pastime for many people these days.
If Preacher J.K. were Muslim, would the photo ever have been taken, much less published? A lot of people are fearful of Muslims, is one reason.
If J.K. had been a Krishna, would that photo be in the paper? If J.K. was Buddhist, would you have taken the trouble to allow it to be printed? If he were a Wiccan, would anyone have ever seen the photo? If J.K. were one of the too many 'Obama freaks' around here, would such a photo grace the front page of the Alligator?
Again I ask, why do you do such things, and by all appearances, only toward Christians? Are you lacking in worthy articles or photos to put in your paper, or was the Alligator photographer just having a dull day? It's funny that your paper sometimes provides listings of some churches in Gainesville that one can attend on Sunday, yet you'll publish a trashy photo like that. Seems to me like a double standard.
You people have no respect, especially it seems for Christians, even though you claim you value freedom of religion. I also can't help but wonder if Scott Paterson would have flipped off Tim Tebow had he had the chance, Tebow being the outspoken Christian and missionary that he is.
Another thing you need to consider is that children can see the front page of the Alligator at various places where it is distributed. I can just hear a 5-year-old girl asking, "Mommy, what's that man doing with his finger?"
Unless Comrade Obama and his "communist democrap goons" take away our freedom of religion, among other freedoms, we still have such.
I don't know J.K. personally, but J.K. has the freedom to preach about the ills and abomination and immorality of homosexual behavior, whether students or professors or administration like it or not. He may not deliver the message gently or quietly, but it's getting out.
Obviously there are liberal professors at UF who will only condone premarital or illicit sexual behavior of any sort, but not the moral, upstanding, wait-until-marriage, one man and one woman type. Strange, I've never seen any articles in the Alligator about the dangers of STDs or AIDS or the emotional or spiritual consequences of sex of any sort outside of marriage. Perhaps I've missed them.
Most people are ignorant; they know homosexuality does involve sex in some fashion. It's not just about attraction, emotions and companionship.
Paterson and Brett Passa are like others: they have to show their butts. If they don't want to hear what J.K. is saying, they should avoid him instead of showing off and making asses of themselves.
If they can't handle what he says, that God himself through the Holy Bible does speak out against not just homosexual perversion but other perversion as well. Like all people, they have legs, they can walk some other direction.
Paterson and Passa could well pull their foolish, asinine stunts on some Christian that is not yet fully sanctified and has little patience or "tolerance" for such stunts, and they could wind up on the wrong end of someone's fist.
Good thing it wasn't me who Paterson flipped off, or me having to deal with such an untalented artist like Passa. In their cases, sometimes people need some sense knocked into them. I, for one, am tired of the anti-Christian agendas and attitudes running amok in this country.
Again, we know there are professors at UF (as well as other universities and community colleges) that absolutely hate and despise Christianity, the Bible and Creation and will stop at nothing to destroy students' faith and confidence in Jesus Christ, the Bible and Creation.
They feel Christians are mindless robots that can't think for themselves. That the Bible is inaccurate, unreliable, bigoted, hate-filled and outdated. I've got news for them. They could not be further from the truth. Are Paterson and Passa examples of the kind of people UF is turning out, or did they just have a bad upbringing?
I also can't help but wonder if by chance Paterson and Passa are frat boys who might have been drinking too much that day.
The thing is, MTV, trashy, foul-mouthed (C)rap music, garbage for movies, sorry anti-Christian TV shows (I could name a few here), the theory of evolution, so-called atheism, sex outside of marriage, drunken parties, false religions and cults, overdone sports fanaticism, occult-oriented comic books, among many other things, don't help benefit students' lives either.
We want a public apology from Paterson and Passa for their foolish actions toward J.K., and a public apology to J.K as well. I'm sure my wife and I are not the only ones that feel this way.
Many of us Christians around here are praying for a revival and a re-awakening at UF and in Gainesville. Not just those places, but for the United States as a whole, including with those in Washington D.C., at the White House and Congress and Senate.
Just because The Lord God calls homosexuality an abomination does not mean he hates the person, just the perversion. He still loves the person and that person's soul and has a better plan and life for them. I could also recommend a good solid church here in Gainesville for Paterson or Passa, anyone at the Alligator or at UF or in Gainesville for that matter.
As far as I'm concerned, I try to avoid the Alligator as much as possible. Today's front-page photo is one reason why. Sometimes however, I'll see one laying around somewhere and may look through the classified section, as that is all it's good for.
Here we are asking for a public apology from Paterson or Passa, but how? For them to send in a letter of apology to the Alligator would be a start.
They have been forgiven, but what they have done or may still do is uncalled for. So it is with the photo. I forgive whoever ran it, but that too was uncalled for.
I'm sure you and the Alligator staff don't like being flipped off, even in regards to whatever those of you there may have.
Dean S. Early is a Gainesville resident.
Editor's note: This is a condensed version of an e-mail sent to the Alligator in response to the Jan. 22 front-page photo.
