Subject: IWG NY Post, It's Elementary letter
From: Interfaith Working Group <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 22:55:56 -0400 (EDT)

The following went out on IWG letterhead listing 10 congregations and religious
organizations and 49 clergy from 14 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.

October 1, 1997

Ray Kerrison
The New York Post
1121 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036

Dear Mr. Kerrison:

	We were disturbed by your September 21 commentary
regarding  "It's Elementary."  Of particular interest
to us is your implying that moral or religious
commentators, if they were allowed into the schools,
would always present a viewpoint contrary to that
expressed in the film, and that therefore people of
minority orientations, whom you contrast with religious
and moral people, have an automatic advantage in a
secular school system. 

	There is, however, very little agreement on the
issue of same-sex relationships among people of faith. 
There are at least five positions which are regularly
voiced by organizations, congregations and clergy in
the Jewish and Christian traditions.  You are obviously
familiar with the first, that people are created
heterosexual and that any deviation is a sin which must
be discouraged by religious people.  The second view is
that same-gender relationships are morally equivalent
to mixed-gender relationships (favoring civil and
religious marriage for same-gender couples and
ordination of sexual minority clergy).   The third is
that minority orientations are created by God as a
challenge which requires celibacy as a response.  The
fourth is that homosexuality is not inherently sinful,
but that God prefers heterosexuality (favoring some
slightly less important form of recognition than
marriage and restrictions on ordination).  And the
fifth is that homosexuality is inherently sinful and
incompatible with a life of faith, but that the legal
rights of sexual minorities must be protected.

	Most importantly, you have missed the major moral
issue of this story, which is that the treatment of
sexual minority youth in most school systems is
reprehensible, and anything that keeps them from being
abused is a good thing.

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.