The Protest Against ‘The Normal Heart’

Re Robert Koehler’s Dec. 3 article “ ‘Normal Heart’ Stirs Up the Heartland,” on the protests surrounding the production of “The Normal Heart” on the campus of Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield, Mo.:

The Rev. Kenneth Gillming and the warrior sheep of his Citizens Demanding Standards warn us to “come back to morals, or the country is in deep trouble.” The kind of morals the Reverend seems to tout are ones where you:

--Burn people’s houses if you disagree with their taste in theater.

--Incinerate their pets.

--Threaten (anonymously, of course) to burn the house of a play’s director.

--Try to blackmail a school by threatening to create funding problems if a play is not canceled or at least censored to the liking of a state representative.

--And, oh gosh, just trample on the Bill of Rights in general.

Mr. Gillming, sir, the morals of the country are just fine. It’s yours that are “in deep trouble.”

BILL SAWYER, Long Beach