Subject: IWG Asbury Park Press letter
From: Interfaith Working Group <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 23:27:34 -0500 (EST)

The following went out on IWG letterhead listing 3 congregations, 6 religious
organizations and 38 clergy from 13 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.

March 13, 1997

The Asbury Park Press
Press Plaza
Asbury Park, NJ  07712

Dear Editors:

Bob Kellow has missed the point that there are many
different religious definitions of "family."  Some
religious bodies do not recognize families in which one
or more partners have remarried, others do not
recognize families in which the married couple are of
different faiths, and some do not recognize families in
which the children were conceived in any manner other
than by the legal parents without the aid of
technology.  Some religions hold that the definition of
family is entirely dependent on the genders of those
involved, to some the gender issue is a tradition
without strong theological basis, and in others there
is no gender component to the definition at all.

A religiously free country that accepts people of all
faiths must look beyond a single religious definition
in order to determine the best legal definition of
family.

Sincerely,
Barbara Purdom     Christopher Purdom
Interfaith Working Group Coordinators

-- 

Interfaith Working Group                Religious organizations, congregations
[email-masked]                      and clergy supporting gay rights,
http://www.libertynet.org/~iwg/         reproductive freedom, and the 
215-235-3050                            separation of church and state.