I couldn't help but feel disappointed in the letter written by Carleton McNeill Smith ("Flier incident expressed resistance to tactics," Oct. 8). National Coming Out Day is intended to be a day for everyone to celebrate our diversity and common bond as human beings. The so-called joke of the ignorance of someone to deface a NCOD flyer is not a joke at all. Perhaps the fact that someone would call it a "joke" illustrates the point that members of the LGBTA community are discriminated against and are not accepted by the Penn State community.

These rallies are diversity education, by putting faces to the rainbow symbol, to the Will from television's Will & Grace. I challenge anyone who doesn't believe discrimination exists to wear a rainbow triangle on your bookbag, hold hands with someone of the same sex and walk around campus. Then see firsthand the discrimination and derogatory comments that the members of the LGBTA community face everyday as members of this campus.

The LGBTA community and these rallies don't "target" young and impressionable children; they seek to educate students whom I like to think of as adults. Should the movement wait to educate middle-aged adults when it's too late? Education is important sooner rather than later. I hope that the students of this campus recognize the efforts of the LGBTA community are legitimate and not merely a joke scribbled on a bathroom stall.