Date: Tue, 26 Sep 1995 16:29:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Chris Purdom Subject: IWG response letter to Daily News The following is going out on Interfaith Working Group stationary listing 2 congregations, 4 organizations, and 14 clergy in the Philadelphia area. Thanks to the Interfaith Alliance for having the quotes on their web page. September 23, 1995 Editors The Philadelphia Daily News PO Box 7788 Phila., PA 19101 Dear Editors: On September 22 you published a letter from a Mr. Matthew Feely, who said that it was "stretching it" for you to have claimed in an editorial that the leaders of the Religious Right view their dissenters as "agents of the anti-Christ," and that he had never heard Ralph Reed or any of his followers utter those words. Ralph Reed does not run the Christian Coalition; Pat Robertson does. The exact quote from Pat Robertson, on the 700 Club, January 14, 1991, was, "You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the anti-Christ. I can love the people who hold false opinions but I don't have to be nice to them." Mr. Feely also says that the last time he checked, the Religious Right hadn't consigned anyone to death for heresy. Perhaps not yet, but on August 18, 1986, Robertson was quoted in New York Magazine as having said, "The termites are in charge now, and that is not the way it ought to be, and the time has arrived for a Godly fumigation." Mr. Feely states that, "Inane analogies like this only succeed in preventing substantive discussions of the issues." The editorial statements were neither inane nor analogies, and unfortunately, the only issue at hand is whether intolerant, anti-democratic, multi-millionaire media tycoons posing as religious leaders will be allowed to impose their brand of government on the American people by exploiting their fear of the future. Sincerely, Barbara Purdom Christopher Purdom Interfaith Working Group Coordinators