To the editor:

Judging by John Gower’s letter in the June 17 issue of the Call, one must assume that he is a stalwart sentry manning the ramparts of the castle of the Christian Right; standing shoulder to shoulder with Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter to protect this bastion of truth, justice and Republican life in America.

Gower’s letter is a stellar example of the deception and suppression Republican right-wing Christians have been engaged in for more than a decade.

Their standard agenda: Disguise your real agenda; convolute facts and circumstances; attach extraneous issues to the issue being argued; name call and label your opponents; assure the reader — viewer, listener, etc. — that God is your partner.

His letter accomplished all.

Mr. Gower takes issue with previous letter writers in a straightforward manner, addressing the issue of “liberal tolerance” related to homosexual marriage. His letter is in response to previous letters in the Call. So far, so good. Thereafter, however, he muddies the issue — tolerance — with convoluted assumptions and conclusions regarding religious and political dogma, while inserting the abortion issue and “religious truth claims”; whatever those are.

Mr. Gower even tries to convince readers that tolerance is actually intolerance and vice versa; that those adhering to his narrow political, social and religious views are, in fact, society’s tolerant ones.

The conclusion is the standard mantra: Label your target — liberals, “… quite intolerant and stunningly misguided” — and call upon the Lord to save you and the other real Christians from the target’s “perverted doctrines.”

“Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population,” Albert Einstein wrote in “Out of My Later Years” published in 1950.

We have the freedom to write to local newspapers, etc. and have our views published in order that they be considered by others. Because one author disagrees with another doesn’t make either of them intolerant. Intolerance roots when we attempt to suppress the freedom of expression of others.

Michael K. Broughton

Green Park