Atheist Rebuttal

The newest member of the Escondido Library Board of Trustees, Thomas DeMitor, showed himself to be a master of the set-up in the excellent article by Tom Gorman (“Escondido Gives Atheist Magazine a Trial,” Feb. 13).

Trustee DeMitor makes a motion to accept American Atheist on a one-year trial basis, then lets us all know “you’re wasting your time” in reading it. He also makes the statement that he has “seen better work from senior high school journalism classes.”

DeMitor lacks credibility. DeMitor, who claims to have “26 years’ ” journalism experience and to have spent more than 30 hours preparing himself to accept American Atheist, asked during the board meeting why the Austin (Tex.) Public Library didn’t accept American Atheist, when, in fact, the Austin Public Library has had two paid subscriptions since 1977. Even a high school journalism student could check the facts better than that.

Also, his claim that the magazine is “poorly written” conflicts quite sharply with testimonial letters presented to the trustees written by professors emeriti in English and philosophy, a professor of psychiatry, psychologists, a reader in genetics from La Trobe University in Australia, the editor of the Journal of College Science Teaching Abstracts and a current professor of philosophy at Ohio Wesleyan--who described the previous actions of the library board as “uninformed, incompetent and indefensible.”

In my opinion, those first two words, uninformed and incompetent, describe Trustees Carol Kane, Jeanne Linthicum and DeMitor very well. I would add that they are unqualified, biased and unworthy of remaining in such a position in the first place. I intend to ask for their resignations at a future Escondido City Council meeting.

I would like to thank Tom Gorman for allowing all Times readers to see for themselves the fatuous statements of the aforementioned trustees.

STEPHEN B. THORNE

Director

San Diego Chapter

American Atheists