In regard to the ongoing issue of balancing rights between minority agendas and majority agendas in the public domain, (in this particular issue that of non-Christian vs. Christian music performed by public school participants):

Isn't the purpose of education to expose one to a broad variety of ideas, concepts and information? Isn't the purpose of the student to learn a curriculum, not write it, and then go on in maturity to pick and choose which concepts to build their personal life around?In high school I had a psychology professor who literally ramrodded the theory of evolution into my head. I thought it was a concept he passionately believed in and he was trying to convert me against my will. It offended my teenage psyche and made me very angry. Today I realize that education was the concept he passionately believed in. He didn't convert me, he broadened my mind, that precious thing for which education was invented, and forever changed the narrow thinking path I was headed into.

In a world where diversity is a huge given, and tolerance and an open-minded embrace of another's beliefs and viewpoints are mandatory if society is to move ahead together, why is there so much angry quibbling? I am surrounded daily by people and actions I find personally offensive. The use of a certain four-letter word as well as the taking of my cherished God's name in vain is a protected right under the Constitution of the society of which I am a citizen. I am not in control of another's use of their right to free speech, I am only in control of my own reaction to it. I choose to turn a deaf ear, to not be converted, and to use my energies pursuing my own agenda.

I choose to turn off the TV, not finish reading the material, exclude myself from the company of such people. Fortunately, I live in a free country. I can do that.

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One ordinary man's intolerance, plus a society that allowed him the unbridled power to foist it upon the citizenry at large, caused the annihilation of over 2 million Jewish human beings. How can we ever demand that our personal (therefore minority) agenda be catered to above a majority one without investing intolerable power in that personal agenda?

Participate or do not. Embrace or do not. But do not force others to do it your way. It is wrong, and it is dangerous.

Marilynn T. Brockbank

West Jordan

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