From: Interfaith Working Group Subject: IWG PECO Energy letter Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 23:52:31 -0400 (EDT) April 21, 1999 Mr. Corbin McNeill, Jr. Chairman PECO Energy Company 2301 Market Street PO Box 8699 Philadelphia, PA 19101 Dear Mr. McNeill: We greatly appreciate the service that PECO Energy provides to community groups in announcing events and anniversaries in lights at the top of the PECO building. It is PECO's sign, and you certainly have the right to do whatever you want with it. But we were very disturbed to read in today's Philadelphia Inquirer that you have chosen not to allow the phrases `gay' and `coming out' because you `are not in the business of being enmeshed in social issues.' It strikes us that you have become much more `enmeshed' by having such a policy than you would have been if you had simply run the announcements. More and more religious organizations, corporations, and local governments, including the City of Philadelphia, are affording gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people the same respect, dignity, and basic rights as everyone else. A refusal to use the words which millions of Americans use to identify themselves is rapidly becoming much more controversial than the words themselves once were. We hope and pray that you will reconsider your policy. Sincerely, Barbara Purdom Christopher Purdom Interfaith Working Group Coordinators The above letter went out on IWG letterhead listing 17 congregations and organizations and 61 clergy from 15 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 http://www.libertynet.org/iwg and clergy supporting gay rights, iwg@libertynet.org reproductive freedom, and the voice: 215-235-3050 fax: 232-0829 separation of church and state. Sunday May 16, 1999 5pm. Marching In the Light: IWG Benefit Concert. Old First Reformed Church. 4th and Race, Philadelphia, PA. See the web page.