By Paul Varnell

All of us who write for the public press, large or small, get reaction comments from readers. Unless the volume is so overwhelming as to be a burden—as it may be for New York Times or Washington Post writers—reader reaction is welcome and can be interesting and useful. It certainly lets us know what other people are thinking.

Writing for a weekly, I don’t get a large volume of comments, but I sometimes wonder what that indicates. Am I not controversial enough? Given that I am fairly “politically incorrect,” that doesn’t seem likely. Are my columns so persuasive that people are moved to agreement with them? I doubt that anyone was ever persuaded of anything by a 750-word column.

So I tentatively conclude that no matter how much effort we put into our pieces, no matter how brilliant our reasoning, many readers regard us columnists as just part of the entertainment mix the paper offers—on par with the articles about popular singers and the porn film reviews—something to read and then move to the next feature.

If people take the trouble to email me, I will generally acknowledge the email as a matter of courtesy. At least in most cases. But some messages don’t really seem to invite reply. The people who write just to vent I generally don’t bother with.

People who do not sign their name and indicate their location usually don’t get a reply either. I figure that I put my name on my opinions, so they should do the same. If people want me to take their opinion seriously, they will acknowledge who it is that holds that opinion. Otherwise I assume that they have something to hide or don’t have a defensible argument for their view.

And, frankly, I do expect messages to be at least minimally literate and courteous. If you are writing to someone who is not a personal friend, and you want them to take you seriously, a certain amount of courtesy, even formality, seems appropriate. Messages do not need to be written in whatever the Internet equivalent is of “black or blue black ink” recommended by Miss Manners, but I do hope for a few capital letters and a minimum of those cute abbreviations.

Nor, unless we are acquainted (and really not even then), is “Hey Paul” or “Hey!” a very satisfactory salutation. I am not one of your buddies on Facebook or MySpace. McLuhan was wrong. “The Medium” is not “the Message.” “The Manner” is “the Message.” At least a significant part of it.

Among the messages I appreciate most are the ones that indicate the writer understood what I wrote and explains where and why they think I went wrong. A thoughtful disagreement is more welcome than almost anything else. Nobody ever learned much from agreement. It is the dialectic created by disagreement that stimulates further thinking and research.

One of the most serious problems I encounter, though, is many people’s inability to read. Some people take me to mean the exact opposite of what I wrote—or something else entirely. Sometimes I wonder if some people even know what words and the concepts they refer to mean. I try to write carefully and say what I mean. I may not succeed every time but I’d like credit for whatever I do say.

I wrote recently that “the Jesus of the Gospels said nothing to condemn homosexuality.” Quick as a flash I got a message from a man at a Bible college “correcting” me, saying that the New Testament does speak of homosexuality. But I said nothing about the whole New Testament. (Incidentally, the Apostle Paul never read the Gospels. They hadn’t been written yet.)

As that example suggests, the columns that bring the most comment, positive and negative, are those dealing with religion. Generally religious views, like political views, are pretty resistant to change, and are often held with fervor far beyond any evidentiary support. Nevertheless, I write about religion because I feel I must. Much of the opposition to gay equality stems from religion or is expressed in religious accents, so the case for gay equality has to be argued at least in part on religious grounds. I don’t see many other gay writers doing this, so I do what I can.

Note: Reader reaction is more visible at the website of the Independent Gay Forum (www.indegayforum.org), which occasionally reprints one or another of my pieces. The website allows readers to post comments beneath articles and columns—and some do. I generally refrain from posting any comments of my own. Tempting as that may be, I figure I took the best shot I could within my 750-word limit and should leave it to others to argue about.

Some of Paul Varnell’s previous columns are posted at the Independent Gay Forum (www.indegayforum.org). His e-mail address is pvarnell@aol.com.