While Mr. Bankos' and Mr. Markle's letters are awash in sentimentality, it is a shame that they are not rooted in much more than that. The Collegian editorial was right on the money when it denounced letting Dr. Laura testify before the state legislature. Dr. Laura is not an expert on the subject and is not a constituent of the commonwealth; therefore her testimony is not germane.

Mr. Markle points out that the Sex Faire brouhaha is a subject on Dr. Laura's program. Let me ask: If I ran a business, does that give me the right to go to the House and basically get free advertising? Of course it doesn't. Just because she is on the radio and purports to have credentials does not make the two situations any different.

While I am eternally grateful for the sacrifices that veterans such as Mr. Bankos have made in protecting freedom, he does not get the choice of which freedoms to protect. When he fought, he fought for all freedoms, whether he agreed with them or not. The marketplace of ideas is not just "some professor's" idea. It is one of the most basic tenets of our freedom of speech. It may be a cozy notion to think that if we quash the Sex Faire, sex will go away. It won't. What events like Sex Faire hope to combat is the highest rate of teenage pregnancy and abortion in the industrialized world.

Education, not repression, is our only hope. And, thanks to people like Rep. Lawless, it looks like we are doomed to repeat history yet again.