Madam, - Donald Clarke's piece on the new John Travolta film Hairspray (The Ticket, July 13th) quotes the editor of the US publication Washington Blade making gratuitous and untrue references to the Church of Scientology.
For the record, our church does not seek to "cure" gays (as if such were possible or even necessary). Indeed, our Church does not purport or claim to "cure" anything. Unlike some other faiths, Scientology is not obsessed with sexual orientation.
What our Church does claim to do is to assist individuals to attain spiritual enlightenment, to take responsibility for themselves and others, and to help create a civilisation where there is no war, crime or insanity.
As part of those efforts Scientologists fund extensive facilities and programmes to rehabilitate drug addicts and prison inmates - which fully align with our overall aims. But of course none of these facts are of interest to the media, obsessed as they are with gossip and rumour. - Yours, etc,
GERARD RYAN,
Church of Scientology
Mission of Dublin,
Middle Abbey Street,
Dublin 1.