Generally I find the Reporter to be a responsible and balanced paper, and the public discourse in the letters to the editor to be interesting and thought-provoking whether or not I agree with the opinions stated.

However, I feel that it was irresponsible of the Reporter to print the outrageous and unsubstantiated claims made by Shaun Kelly in his recent letter against unspecified members of the Kirkland church community, and by extension Kirkland’s religious community generally.

To say that “numerous church leaders” have called for all gays to be rounded up, placed behind electric fences and killed off by the government is Mr. Kelly’s right, however paranoid and psychotic it makes him appear. But for the Reporter to print these allegations, in the absence of any specificity as to who said these things, shows a lack of journalistic ethics.

Let’s say the tables were turned. If a religious reader of the paper wrote a long paragraph claiming that “numerous leaders” of the gay community had called for the annihilation of all Christian believers, but failed to specify who said these things, or at what official gatherings, or as representatives of which gay rights group, would it go to print? I hardly think so. It would be taken for what it was, the ravings of someone trying to incite hatred and violence, and stir up discord within the community.

I am not denying that there are some small, cult-like organizations (none that I’m aware of with any connections in our Kirkland community) that have made hateful pronouncements against the gay community (along with Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and other groups), but these are hardly representative of the mainstream Christian community, and to refer to them as “leaders” of the Christian or religious community is both laughable and offensive.

And there are those here in Kirkland and elsewhere who oppose gay marriage on moral and Biblical grounds, which is their right to do. And among those leading this charge, I have never heard any calls to violence toward gays, as Mr. Kelly alleges. To lump them together with the few, small, violent factions claiming religious grounds for their “jihad” of sorts against those they disagree with is vitriolic on the part of a private citizen. To give it a voice by putting it in print is unconscionable on the part of an ethical news organization.

Elizabeth Samse, Kirkland