The "Defense of Marriage Act" will soon pass the legislature and President Clinton will sign it. Our nation then will be divided into two classes with separate moral standards for each.

The act will allow your community to live under moral standards that our nation, our religious leaders and our politicians have advocated since the beginning of our nation.

The act will impose on my community moral standards that will violate my religious values. That our nation, our religious leaders and our politicians reject as immoral. For example, former Vice President Dan Quayle admonished Murphy Brown for bringing an illegitimate child into the world. Yet the law now requires the mothers of my community to bear illegitimate children.

The children of both communities learn by example. How will they learn correct moral vlaues if we teach one set of standards for your community while imposing immoral standards on my community?

Before President Clinton signs the act into law, our religious leaders, our politicians and my community's leaders need to join together and pledge support for the passage of laws that will give legal recognition of our relationships.

With such laws we can return to being "one nation under God" with one moral standard for all.

Sheila L Richardson
Bellingham Wa