Subject: IWG Miami Herald Reclaiming America letter
From: Interfaith Working Group <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 23:16:59 -0400 (EDT)

August 12, 1998

Miami Herald
1 Herald Plaza
Miami, FL  33132

Dear Editors:

We are stunned that an organization called the
Reclaiming America Center spends $600,000 on ads all
around the country saying they want a national debate
about sexual orientation, and the print media (the
direct beneficiaries of this spending largesse), rather
than doing real investigative journalism, fall all over
themselves to join in the requested debate.  Instead,
some basic questions should have been asked, such as:
Reclaiming America for Whom?  Reclaiming America by
what means?  Reclaiming America to what end?  Exactly
what was the original claim, and how was it lost?   

How about some basic investigative journalism on how an
organization like Exodus (which has long claimed to be
apolitical) allowed its name to be put on ad from
organizations which worry about almost nothing but
politics?  Given that D. James Kennedy is based in
Florida, and appears regularly on television, your
readers might also find it instructive to understand
what other sorts of informational campaigns Rev.
Kennedy has announced on his recent Coral Ridge
Ministries telecasts.

The real fact which Janet L. Folger is trying to
obscure is that definitively resolving the causes of
homosexuality is immaterial to whether people get equal
treatment under the law.  The current national debate
over what constitutes equal treatment is slowly being
lost by the organizations who put their names on the
ads in question.  

Sincerely,
Barbara Purdom     Christopher Purdom
Interfaith Working Group Coordinators

The above letter went out on IWG letterhead listing 16 congregations and
organizations and 59 clergy from 16 religious traditions. 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.

-- 

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.