March 20, 2004

Jackson Sun
245 W. Lafeyette
Jackson, TN  38301

Dear Editors:

In your March 14 articles about marriage and civil rights 
there were quotes from several people who do not seem to 
understand that civil rights are civil rights and people 
are people, and that all civil rights struggles have 
followed similar patterns regardless of who is being denied 
rights or what rights are being denied.  Furthermore, a number 
of people who were prominent in the struggle for civil rights 
for African Americans in the 1960’s are supportive of or 
active in the current struggle for civil rights for gay, 
lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, including Coretta 
Scott King, John Lewis, Rodney Powell, and the Rev. James Lawson.  

We were especially disturbed by comments from Union University 
President David Dockery, who chose to focus on Rosie O’Donnell 
in order to claim that those who support equal marriage rights 
all have a secular motivation, while ignoring the clergy people 
who officiated at the legal marriages of same-gender couples in 
their houses of worship and at San Francisco’s City Hall, sometimes 
at the risk of persecution or prosecution within their respective 
denominations.  


Sincerely,
Barbara Lamond Purdom			
Christopher Purdom
Interfaith Working Group Coordinators