We are not going to lie to you.

We will not lie about the words being spoken on this campus. We will not hide viewpoints that are considered unpopular.

It is our job to make sure all voices are heard. If we ignore certain voices, if we stifle debate, then we are not doing our job.

Since we published Chris Kovalchick's letter Feb. 17, readers have flooded The Daily Collegian with nearly 200 e-mails. Allies condemned the letter as hate speech that should inspire improvement for the campus climate toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered students.

Some students are appalled that the Collegian would print such a display of bigotry and perpetuate hate. Such words should not appear in a newspaper, they say.

But is this such a bad thing?

Kovalchick's letter, without a doubt, hurt many in the LGBTA community.

Unfortunately, this is nothing new to them. They hear hateful words similar to Kovalchick's almost every day.

But it is just not every day that someone has the gall to want those words, complete with a signature, displayed in a newspaper for thousands to see.

Kovalchick certainly does not stand alone in his opinion. Hundreds -- if not thousands -- of other students here agree with him. And this is the reason we published his letter.

These opinions need to be exposed to show a true representation of the student body. Many of us need to be reminded that opinions such as Kovalchick's are not uncommon here -- especially if LGBT students want our community to know that such hatred continues to exist and they feel it should be eliminated.

We will continue to print letters that show viewpoints on all sides of issues.

Some have compared this situation to that of other minority groups. If, instead, a letter criticized our decision to run a photo of two black students kissing, would we have published it?

Yes, we would.

If such a letter had used more vulgar language or epithets, or had directly attacked someone's life, we would not have printed it. Kovalchick's letter did not meet those qualifications to the point where we would not print it. It was, instead, a sweeping attack on a broad group of people: homosexuals.

Kovalchick's letter displays the campus climate toward LGBT students -- just as a letter disgusted with a photo showing two, loving, black students kissing would show the severity of intolerance toward black students.

It is possible that many of us who do not face the daily problems of LGBT students have been lulled into a false sense that this campus is much more accepting.

Sadly, many of us learned last week that it may not have improved as much as some have thought.

Kovalchick's letter and the responses that agree with him show that our community may have more work to do than previously thought to combat homophobia.

As a result of our publishing the letter, Allies and other groups have said they are looking at this as an opportunity to educate and spread acceptance.

Such a push for tolerance toward LGBT students would not have occurred if we had not published Kovalchick's letter. Intolerance would continue to fester, and the honest dialogue we're having now wouldn't exist.

Kovalchick's letter is an advantage to the community because it shows us all that students here face hatred often, and it has yet to be extinguished.

For this horribly blatant reminder, we should all be grateful.