Subject: IWG Gary Indiana letter
From: Interfaith Working Group <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 23:17:43 -0500 (EST)

The following went out on IWG letterhead listing 12 congregations and religious
organizations and 50 clergy from 15 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.

November 16, 1997

Darryl Fortson
Post-Tribune
1065 Broadway
Gary, IN 46402 

Dear Dr. Fortson:

We read your November 5 column with great interest.  We
appreciate that you respect sexual orientation as an
innate characteristic, encourage people to treat sexual
minorities with respect, and that you prefaced your
initial statements about God's will with a disclaimer
that they were your personal opinion.  However, we take
great issue with the idea that the recognition of the
normalcy of homosexuality dishonors the notion of
liberalism, or constitutes an unreal faith.  We believe
that the notion of heterosexual supremacy dishonors
love, but we do not believe that your belief to the
contrary means that your faith is not real.

No one would suggest requiring anyone to enter into a
same-sex relationship, and since most people are
heterosexual, it is not sensible to say that we cannot
have a productive society with same-sex relationships. 
You obviously would not want your children marrying a
person of the same gender, but many parents simply want
their children to find someone with whom to be happy,
and we should remember that parents have no legal say
in who their adult children marry.

We were also annoyed by your leap from same-gender
marriage to anonymous promiscuous sex.  One is an
orientation-specific attempt to enter into a legal
institution of which you approve; the other is a
specific behavior with which you would obviously
disagree no matter what the genders of the people
involved.

Fence-sitting is not a tenable position when it comes
to equal legal treatment.  We are not just talking
about bolstering self-esteem; we are talking about
recognizing equality, and on this point society is
changing, and will change.  We know this because we
have faith, and our faith is just as real as yours.

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.