Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 23:13:00 -0500 From: Interfaith Working Group Subject: IWG Daily Oklahoman GLBT and religion letter March 9, 2000 Daily Oklahoman PO Box 25125 Oklahoma City, OK 73125 Dear Editors: In his March 4 response to Nathaniel Batchelder, John Mallon merely manages to reinforce the stereotypes of Christian attitudes toward sexual minorities that he is supposedly trying to refute. Mallon wants us to believe only an “immature” Christian “rejoices in the pain, suffering, loneliness, mistreatment of, or violence toward, persons of homosexual attraction,” while mature Christians merely accept the oppression of sexual minorities as an unfortunate consequence of God’s law. The argument against the stereotype of anti-gay Christians is not that oppression is justified, or that it is based on something other than animosity; the correct argument against the stereotype is that not all Christians practice the kind of oppression that Batchelder was complaining about, and that people of faith from many religious traditions are working for the civil and religious recognition of the basic equality of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Sincerely, Barbara Lamond Purdom Christopher Purdom Interfaith Working Group Coordinators The above letter was sent on IWG letterhead listing 19 congregations and religious organizations and 64 clergy from 16 religious traditions. Would you like to start an Interfaith Working Group in your area? http://www.iwgonline.org/regions/ -- Interfaith Working Group PO Box 11706 Philadelphia, PA 19101 http://www.iwgonline.org/ iwg@iwgonline.org voice: 215-235-3050 fax: 215-232-0829