Readers respond to disgusting politeness.

Most angry readers just want to be heard.

They're mad about a column or an editorial, and most get the relief they need if someone will just hear them out for a few minutes. I believe we as opinion writers owe our readers that much.

I've reached this conclusion after 12 years on the editorial page, 11 with our afternoon newspaper that folded a year ago and the past year as deputy editorial page editor of our morning paper.

It helps, I must confess, that my afternoon paper had readership of only about 30,000 at its peak, and I'm in the Number 2 spot on the morning paper. Complaints to me thus have been limited for obvious reasons, and I've found it possible to answer almost all telephone calls.

I start the conversations doing what comes as naturally to a Southerner as eating grits for breakfast - I'm extraordinarily, almost disgustingly, polite.

I tell the caller I appreciate him or her as a reader; I make sure they are aware I'm writing opinions - and some of them don't realize that, despite the "Opinion" label on the page. I listen to them with respect, even if they show none for me. I'm the paid professional, after all.

And I always, always, invite them to write a letter to the editor voicing their displeasure. I emphasize, repeatedly, that we write for an opinion page, and that this newspaper values them as a reader and will provide them a forum for voicing their opinions. Most of the time this works, and the reader hangs up with a sense that he or she has been treated fairly, is appreciated despite our differing opinions, and has a stake in this newspaper.

These simple techniques worked far less successfully a few months ago, when the Greenville community and our newspaper become players in one of the most explosive issues of the day.

Our county council passed a resolution condemning the "gay lifestyle" and implying gays and lesbians are responsible for the breakdown of the American family. This controversy tore the community apart.

Our newspaper took what I considered a strong stand in opposition to the anti-gay resolution, and I was perhaps most identified with that position. Some irate readers want more than just respect and a forum in which to express their opinions, although thank heavens that satisfied most of them.

A few readers, however, ended long conversations with the chilly closing line, "I still want to cancel my subscription." In that case, I transferred them to circulation, but always made a direct transfer. This allowed me to explain to a circulation employee and encourage them to fight to retain the customer.

At least one subscriber wrote my publisher a scathing attack on me. The reader closed by saying my "termination might possibly" make things OK. The publisher encouraged the reader to stay with our newspaper, but he also made it clear I wasn't going to be fired.

There was no way in a controversy as emotionally charged as this one that we could do our job and hang onto every subscriber. Fortunately, such times don't come around too often, and therefore most irate readers are soothed just by having editorial writers listen for a few minutes and recognize we gave someone heartburn at the breakfast table.

NCEW member Beth Padgett is deputy editor of the editorial page of The Greenville News in South Carolina.