March 29, 2024

Veteran who fought for free speech should be allowed to partake in it

To the editor:

Bob Eschliman does great work in the journalism field. He also happens to be a man of extraordinary faith. I admire Bob in many ways. He served this country in the military. He’s continued that service by being a hard-worker in the newspaper business.

As someone who defended American freedoms in the military, Bob enjoyed that freedom with a personal blog. Again, that’s a personal blog — similar to a diary, except something interesting enough for other people to want to read.

Last week, Bob wrote a blog post about the far left, pro-homosexual agenda. It’s the same far left, pro-homosexual agenda that many journalists have — whether they admit it or not. He wrote that there is a group of homosexual activists trying to twist the words in the Bible to make homosexuality seem OK.

There’s no debate about whether or not this is happening. And there’s no debate about whether or not they threaten Christians. I’m guessing the florists, bakers and photographers who have been sued for not providing services to a homosexual wedding (which violates their most deeply-held religious beliefs), would agree.

When I read that the Des Moines Register, along with a far left Internet blogger, took exception to Bob’s post, I was astounded. First of all, bloggers, and especially newspapers, should recognize freedom of speech. Considering the source (the Register), I’ll give them a pass on understanding freedom of religion.

Bob wrote about how the homosexual activists are attempting to silence Christians and re-write the Bible. In response, homosexual activists are attempting to deny these charges by silencing Bob. Am I the only one able to connect these dots?

Surely a newspaper like the Newton Daily News understand the essential freedoms we have both as journalists and as U.S. citizens. At some point someone somewhere needs to stand up to the homosexual activists. It seemed to work out pretty well for Chick-fil-A.

As a Christian who happens to believe in what the Bible actually says, I realize we will be persecuted. I realize that the world will hate us for simply believing in the Bible, but that is OK because the world first hated Christ.

But as an American I am appalled at the attempts to silence and censor God-fearing patriots like Bob. After all, he fought for the freedom to even have this debate. At the very least we should include him in it.

Jacob Hall

Des Moines