As Chairman of the Moore County Republican Party, I feel it incumbent upon me to clarify our local party position on the issue of using church directories to identify likely candidates for political recruitment, as reported in The Pilot editorial, “GOP Goes Fishing in Churchly Waters” (Feb. 22).

It is our responsibility as Republicans to communicate and promote our political values and principles in the recruitment of new members and in the identification and support of high quality Republican candidates for public office. There are, however, many options for achieving these objectives without resorting to the use of church directories.

There is room within our party for a broad range of philosophies, but we diverge philosophically from the state party on this issue as we do on other issues previously discussed in the local press — including their attempt to inject themselves into the internal politics of Moore County.

It is our view that the use of church directories to identify likely Republican voters amounts to proliferation, and it is presumptive to correlate individual religious affiliation, church attendance or religious philosophy with any particular political agenda. It is not the policy of the Moore County Republican Party to conduct, participate in or rely upon such practices to promote our party in Moore County.

John Owen