Some Opinions Are Worthless and Should Be Treated as Such

The hate mail was delivered on pink paper because the sender thought I was gay, so it would offend me.

As a newspaper reporter for The Chronicle in Willimantic, Connecticut in 2005, I led a series on the newly legalized “civil unions” in the state for gay and lesbian couples. Connecticut was one of the first states to move in that direction, years before gay marriage became legal nationwide.

Our staff wrote and published dozens of stories that week. I interviewed several gay and lesbian couples, which completely changed my life. At the time, I was a young conservative, fooled by W’s “compassionate conservatism” and belief in smaller government. Couple after couple railed against Republicans at every level of government who made their lives miserable. Connecticut may be a blue state, but rural, eastern Connecticut is not.

My publisher, a genuinely good man, knew that we’d get blowback from the moment I pitched the idea to editors, but he was on board. He felt it was a worthy story to tell. We made sure to give Republicans and those opposed a forum in the series to express their opinions.

When the series started that week, we began to get inundated with the hate mail. For every “thank you” note, we would receive at least ten telling us to, well, I can’t repeat what they…