Subject: IWG Bellevue letter Date: Mon, 5 Aug 1996 23:33:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Chris Purdom The following went out on IWG letterhead listing 2 congregations, 5 religious organizations and 35 clergy from 12 faiths and denominations. If you are in the general Philadelphia area and represent a congregation or religious organization or are clergy, let us know if you want to be added - all faiths are welcome. We will also be happy to help start similar organizations in other areas. Visit the web page at http://www.libertynet.org/~iwg/ or http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/religion/orgs/iwg/ August 5, 1996 Bellevue Journal-American PO Box 90130 Bellevue, WA 98009-9230 Dear Editors: Like you, we also believe that marriage is sacred. But we do not believe that the definition of marriage involves the gender of the participants. You cited "3,500 years of unchanging history," yet many faiths have had gender-neutral definitions of marriage for many years. Christian recognition of same-gender mar- riages predates recognition of opposite-sex marriages, which did not occur in the Catholic Church until the fourteenth century. The Unitarian Universalist Association, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and the Presbyterian Church (USA) have all announced their support for civil same-sex marriage within the last few months. Within their denominations same-sex marriages are performed by individual clergy and congregations. Same-sex marriages are also performed as a matter of policy within Reconstructionist Judaism, the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, Unity Fellowship Churches, the Evangelical Anglican Church in America, many Quaker congregations and some branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and by individual congregations and clergy from the Catholic, Old Catholic, United Church of Christ, American Baptist, Southern Baptist, Episcopalian, Evangelical Lutheran, Methodist, Neo-Pagan, and Zen Buddhist traditions. Whether the legal definition of civil marriage is designed to discriminate against gays and lesbians is not the question. It does in fact discriminate against both sexual minorities and the religious bodies that unite them in holy matrimony. Sincerely, Barbara Purdom Christopher Purdom Interfaith Working Group Coordinators