Editors apologize for not researching the author’s affiliation with hate group before publishing the letter.
In Tuesday’s paper, The Post ran a letter to the editor under the headline “Court ruling on gay marriage should be overturned.” The letter was emailed to our editor@thepostathens.com address late Sunday night, and ran on The Post’s opinion page.
To both the author and some of our audience, the letter may have indeed been just that — one man’s opinion. What we didn’t know, and failed to research at the time, was the man’s affiliation with a group called Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment, or HOME. The group has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Wayne Lela, the author of the letter, is entitled to his opinion. He’s entitled to voice that opinion publicly — to email it to us, say it in a public settings or put it on a public Facebook page. However, he isn’t guaranteed the right to publicize that opinion — which could be categorized as hate speech — within The Post’s pages.
We intend on our opinion page being an open forum for uninhibited speech. But when that dialogue becomes hateful and offensive, such as Lela’s assertion that “female minds in male bodies and male minds in female bodies are sure signs that something went wrong somewhere,” we reserve the right to turn it down, as we should have done Monday.
Letters written to The Post, columns, editorials and op-eds should continue to create healthy dialogue regarding difference in opinion. Readers shouldn’t expect to turn to an opinion page that mirrors their own unique views for comfort’s sake. However, The Post can’t allow that dialogue to turn to a place of vitriolic hate and fear.
We should have been more vigilant about researching Lela’s background and group affiliation, and we shouldn’t have let his letter get published. From this point forward, readers can expect us to correct that error. In the meantime, though, the letter will exist on our website (as will this editorial) to ensure we’re being transparent with our audience in our faults, our decision-making processes and our grievances when we fail to correct either.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post's executive editors: Editor-in-Chief Emma Ockerman, Managing Editor Rebekah Barnes, Opinion Editor Will Gibbs and Digital Managing Editor Samuel Howard. Post editorials are independent of the publication's news coverage.
