Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 00:31:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: Chris Purdom <purdom@rabbit.com>
Subject: IWG Daily News Letter

The following is going out on Interfaith Working Group letterhead
(2 congregations, 4 religious organizations and 14 clergy, let me
know if your congregation or religious organization wants to be added):

October 19, 1995

Editors
The Philadelphia Daily News
PO Box 7788
Phila., PA 19101

Dear Editors:

Paul Russo's response to your October 10 editorial is ludicrous.  He claims 
that because a majority of Colorado voters rejected so-called "special rights"
for homosexuals, a "liberal" judge was wrong for ruling it unconstitutional.

Just because a majority of people anywhere want something doesn't make it 
right.  A majority of people in the South didn't want slavery to end or to give 
blacks the chance to exercise their right to vote, but that didn't make it 
right.  It is possible that a majority of people in the country right now do 
not believe in equal protection under the law (which is not the same as 
"special rights") but that doesn't make that belief right either.

The framers of our constitution built in a number of methods for guarding 
against the tyrrany of the majority over any particular minority group.  The 
separation of church and state is one example.  If safeguards like this did 
not exist, no minority group would be safe from persecution at the hands of 
the majority.  In Nazi Germany, homosexuals were the first ones hauled off to 
camps, followed by the Gypsies, and then Jews and other "undesirables."  Do 
we need to see history repeated in Colorado?

If  Mr. Russo is so concerned about majority rule, what about the voters in 
Aspen, Boulder and Denver?  The voters in these municipalities passed laws 
banning discrimination based upon sexual orientation.  Are their wishes to be 
totally disregarded because a bunch of homophobes staged a successful get-
out-the-vote campaign?

Mr. Russo neeeds to review the constitution's protections against the 
tyrrany of the majority, and the injustices which the British inflicted on 
their subjects which prompted the framers of the constitution to include 
these protections.  Sadly, he is not the only American who needs to do so.

					Sincerely,
		Barbara Purdom            	Christopher Purdom
		Interfaith Working Group Coordinators