LISA GRAY’S “HONOR THY Parents” (9/8) is a biased piece which encourages intolerance toward a minority religious group. She seems to maintain that the effort to establish Parents’ Day as a national holiday is a crime, basically because of the name resemblance between the national holiday and the Unificationist holiday called True Parents’ Day. For one thing, holidays often have different meanings for different people. Some see Easter, for example, as simply a time for children to hunt eggs, while others (Unificationists included) see it as a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. To a certain extent the meaning of any holiday is in the eye of the beholder.

One thing is certain. Unificationists deeply wish that true loving families can emerge in America, whatever their religious or philosophical persuasions. The healing of the terrible problems of our country requires that more and more people can form families in which children are truly loved and raised with a deep sense of their own value as well as a sense of responsibility for the community around them. Thus the meaning of the national Parents’ Day has to do chiefly with the development of good parents—be they of one faith or another.

Moreover, the notion that the Rev. Moon is somehow dangerous in trying on occasion to influence public policy is just silly. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, two of the greatest leaders of this century, also sought to influence public policy. It’s fortunate that they did. Because they were reformers, they necessarily rubbed many people the wrong way. They encountered tremendous fear and opposition, and ultimately gave their lives, but the world benefited immeasurably because of their work. The Rev. Moon also hopes to have an influence—simply because he has valuable insights that can help in the mending of society. Anabaptists, Quakers, Methodists, Mennonites, and a host of other groups were regarded as threats to established order in their day. Time proved, however, that they helped society rather than harmed it. The Rev. Moon is in the same group.

Arlington, Va.