To the editor:

I would like to see the Journal-World impose a temporary moratorium on “religious witness” in its letters to the editor section.

If these missives were few and far between, the discriminate reader might consign them to the category of contrary opinion that enriches a diverse community such as ours. Unfortunately, though, they abound, particularly on the part of one writer whose jury-rigged jeremiads appear with the frequency of a regular column. And too often they reveal a blatant or thinly veiled subtext of homophobia, which attributes our supposed condemnation as nation and community to the presence of certain citizens among us. Now, many of us think that this country is indeed going to hell in a handbasket, but because of issues that can be documented and discussed in rational secular terms without casting aspersions on the personal lives of our neighbors.

I realize that there might be an issue of free speech involved here. That is why I am proposing a brief moratorium rather than an outright ban. So no censorship, please! Just exercise your editorial prerogative to give us a breather from our local Bible-thumpers.