Subject: IWG Newsweek Ad Campaign Letter
From: Interfaith Working Group <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 09:02:12 -0400 (EDT)

July 29, 1998

Newsweek
251 West 57th St.
New York, NY  10019

Dear Editors:

Thank you for Mark Miller's critical look at the
$600,000 national ad campaign organized by Rev. D.
James Kennedy that asserts that gay people can and
should change their orientation.  However, even if
everyone could become heterosexual, the fact that Rev.
Kennedy believes that everyone should be heterosexual
should have no effect on how sexual minorities are
treated by the government.  Rev. Kennedy, like all of
us, is a direct beneficiary of the Constitutional
protection of religion, and very few people claim that
one's adherence to a particular religion is biological,
genetic, or otherwise innate.  We treat all faiths and
people of all faiths equally under the law.  Since the
only objections to same-gender sexual behavior seem to
be religious in nature, and this is not a theocracy,
and finally, there is not even religious consensus on
the relative morality of homosexuality and
heterosexuality, there is no good reason that sexual
orientation should not be afforded the same legal
protections as religious preference.

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.