Be careful when you write as if you are negative from the start they won't read your letter. I've based my letting not siding with them, but sympathising their beliefs, and then letting them know why they are backward. Here's my letter:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing from a small town in the desert of Western Australia. I am practicing Catholic, I attend church at least once a week with a family that has been Catholics for generations, and I am a female heterosexual Professional Engineer who is engaged. And with that background, which is sure to be very different from the other letters you have received, most of which I hope are not abusive or cause offense, I am writing to discuss the decision to cancel the Itawamba Agricultural High School Prom.

I understand that the decision was made by those who though it was in the best interests of the high school students, a decision influenced by Christian beliefs based the Holy Bible; Beliefs that they hold because it is all that they know is right, beliefs passed down from previous generations.

However, if those people also read other parts of the Holy Bible, they will notice that the passages about women which contradict what most Christians believe now. I could quote endless passages that cover topics such as a good wife will serve every need of her husband, a good wife will take care of the home and children with no help from the husband, a good husband would involve their wife to work or to assist with his monetary affairs, and so on. Now do you agree with this? I’m sure you would not, or if you do, most other Christians would not. In fact, would you not be disappointed if your child said that someone was a bad wife and mother because they were working to pay the bills? We look at the discrimination women used to face, and still face in some industries as I do personally, and think in disbelief “Why it was so?”, “Why were they sexist?” Most people now, myself included, do not have respect for those that were discriminated, even though it was a social, cultural and religious norm.

I ask; if that is what the Holy Bible specifically states, why is it not followed? Many scholars agree that the Holy Bible is written in terms of morals, not facts. One example is the tale about the Holyman who, through prayer, spoke ill of the tax man who was praying next to him, whereas the tax man was asking for forgiveness. The moral was not that we should insult a taxman through prayer, but that we should not judge others and strive not to be vain. Chapter One of Genesis in the Old Testament does not mean that the world was created in exactly 7 days. It’s a way to explain that the good we see in our Earth is God’s doing. The importance of the Holy Bible is that it is a story of morals, not fact.

In addition, there was discrimination to many Christians that was not from passages in the Holy Bible, but was accepted as the norm. The best example was discrimination of race and colour in Australia that happened before the equal rights movement became accepted. My own father was a victim of this. He attended a Catholic school as an Italian, with many others of different background; European, Irish, Asian, Aboriginal and Australian. His classes were segregated; the white Australian’s were in one set of classes, the white Irish were in another set of classes, and the remaining students, regardless if they were born in Australia, were kept apart. This segregation happened everywhere in Australia. From what I have learnt of history, segregation also happened in churches in the United States of America. We also look back at this in shock, do we not? We think “how could they be so racist?” But it was a social, cultural and religious norm.

I have given you two examples of discrimination that in the past was accepted but now we look back in shame. In the past, Christian’s believed that racism and sexism was normal, that it was not so, but now certainly do not. They were beliefs that Christians look back on in embarrassment. And we are about to face it again; the discrimination of people with non-heterosexual sexual orientation will be the next embarrassment. Of course, at the moment Christian leaders will not say otherwise; because it is what they believe is right from what they have learnt from previous generations, just as they did with racism and sexism in the past. But why did those beliefs change? Because people fought for their rights, against what was preached. Eventually, what is preached in regards to sexual orientation will change; it already is. And those who do not start to accept that discrimination for sexual orientation is wrong are going to be the people our children will be ashamed of when learning about this equal rights battle in the future. You are facing a choice, to discriminate or follow what is being preached. I have made my choice; I will not follow. Because I will not make the same mistakes of those Christians who were racist and sexist, and I will continue to fight against the norms so that I can be seen with pride, not shame, from future generations.

Jesus said to love your neighbour as you would want to be loved. That is the biggest moral of all, which is what set the Christians apart and is the base of all our beliefs. If you would not like to experience racism, sexism, discrimination against your age, because of a disability, or from anything else, why do you discriminate? If you love everyone, you love as Jesus loves.

God bless,

Queen of the Desert