To the editors:

I wish to commend Robert McClory for the excellent article on the silencing of Teresita Weind [January 3]. He has done a fine job of both getting out the facts and putting that conflict in context for the public.

There is one small error I wish to correct. McClory misunderstood the analogy that I made between full membership in the church and full membership in civil society. I did not suggest that once a group had won the vote, they should see that as a casual option that most would not bother to exercise! I regard voting as a serious civic duty for all citizens.

The analogy was to the holding of public office. Full membership in the church and in civil society involves the right to seek to hold public office, but that is not a right that all people will choose to exercise.

Rosemary Radford Ruether

Georgia Harkness Professor of Applied Theology

Evanston