Two cases of a point missed

To The Editor:
We felt offended and deeply hurt upon reading the most recent “Our Perspective …,” published in the Oct. 30, 2001 edition of The Appalachian. Both of us take great offense to the notion that we were capitalizing on the deaths of those lost in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when in fact, we were doing just the opposite.
The reason this whole thing even became an issue is because Rev. Dr. Jerry Falwell used the attacks as an opportunity to preach hatred and intolerance.
From there, it snowballed into an even bigger issue, as we began to discover the nature, history and politics of Liberty University.
Last year, the two of us were accused of writing legislation “detrimental to a nation already in the midst of a moral decline” (March 20, 2001; “Our Perspective…”).
This year we are told that we’re capitalizing on the “most horrific attack on American soil in history to further a collective political agenda.” Through it all, your “Our Perspective …” column has continually missed the point that the two of us have been trying to make.
We didn’t write our legislation to push any sort of political agenda through senate; we wrote it because there was a need for it. We saw students being attacked last year, just like we saw minorities within the Appalachian community being attacked by Liberty this year. In the future, we would appreciate it if your paper would refrain from resorting to personal attacks if you disagree with the intent of student government legislation.
Ian Mance ianmance@hotmail.com
Paul Funderburk
pf41613@cp.appstate.edu