To the editor:

Reading in the Journal-World about the “trial” related to the beating of a local gay man took me back a few years. Suddenly, it was 1965, I was 10 years old again and watching the news of the lynching of black Americans in the south, of the beatings of those who were different in color or beliefs and the general apathy and acceptance of these activities. It’s 2003 now and intolerance is still going on and accepted in Lawrence!

Why? Is it because it was a gay man who didn’t try to hide his preferences? Is it because the four or five men who jumped him attend Kansas University? Thank God there are people who see through the smokescreen the prosecutor put up and expressed their outrage about the frat boy who was granted immunity. It’s too bad they couldn’t reverse the deal the D.A. made with this kid.

I used to be proud to live in Lawrence and the good old U.S.A. but times are a-changin’. When our country attacks others, like Iraq, with no provocation and it is accepted, when gays are beaten on our city streets with the approval of our justice system, it is hard to hold our head up and be proud of where you live.

Mike Stine,

Lawrence