From: sylvan@pyramid.COM (Sylvan Ruud)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Denver Post Article 'Politics and the Religious Right'
Date: 11 Nov 92 02:47:29 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corporation, Mountain View, California

I finally got this typed in.  If you have a postscript printer,
mail to me, and I can send you the postscript.  This is from October 25th,
and is reproduced without permission.


-- 

Sylvan Ruud                        Pyramid Technology Corp., Denver, CO 80202
sylvan@pyramid.com                 1200 17th St., Box 122, (303) 595-5528




"We are going to place Pat Robertson on city councils, school boards 
and legislatures all over this country"


  -  Pat Robertson

Born Again Politics


The Religious Right and the GOP


Story by Claire Martin


  


  


  When Pat Buchanan announced, "There is a religious war going on in our 
country for the soul of America/" at the Republican National Convention last 
August, he was surrounded by GOP delegates who knew exactly what he was 
talking about.


  Forty percent of those delegates came to the convention through cam-
paigns orchestrated by members of the Christian religious right - a collective 
term for fundamentalist, Pentecostal, evangelical and charismatic Christian 
Republicans who believe in a narrow, literal interpretation of the Bible. Most 
are newcomers to politics, elected through campaigns conducted through 
churches, fighting for dramatic changes at every level of government.


  The see themselves in a holy war, "Godly people" crusading against abor-
tion-rights activists, gay and lesbian civil rights activists, family leave advo-
cates, divorce, working women and feminists, sex education programs and 
school curricula that ignore creationism and other Bible-based teachings, 
including prayer.


  Most Americans have ignored the religious right, or dismissed it as a 
minority fringe. But the religious right is a powerful group, with a formidable 
political network that crosses state lines and an agenda to reconstruct this 
country's government from school boards to the Oval Office.


  When national campaign efforts foundered - the 1988 presidential bids of 
televangelist Pat Robertson (now president of the Christian Coalition) and 
former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke (whose campaign manager, Billy 
McCormack is not the Christian Coalition's Louisiana director) - the religious 
right shifted its attention to local elections.


  After successfully placing candidates during 1990 local elections in Califor-
nia and Virginia, the religious right has multiplied its efforts. This year, though 
a network of Christian-based advocacy and education groups, it has coordi-
nated campaigns and ballot initiatives throughout the country. Some exam-
ples:


  o  Christian conservatives in Colorado network with Christian 
conservatives in Oregon, Missouri, Maine and Florida, sharing strategies 
to promote anti-gay rights initiatives. Two brochures advocating the 
Colorado and Oregon initiatives are almost identical.


  o  In Iowa, Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and a Michigan member of the 
Christian Coalition are working with the Iowa religious right to defeat a 
proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Iowa Constitution.


  o  Republican caucuses in Colorado, Washington, Louisiana, Kansas, 
Michigan, Arizona, Oregon and other states were dominated by religious 
right delegates. They approved extremely conservative party platforms, 
alienating many mainstream Republicans. The Washington state platform 
recommends outlawing witchcraft and yoga, and the Republican national 
platform calls for a barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border.


  o  Throughout the United States, hundreds of religious right candidates 
with no previous political experience won 1992 primary elections and 
caucuses, often to the surprise of longtime GOP politicians.


  Most of the religious right candidates - including state legislature candi-
date and Fort Collins evangelical pastor Dan Nygaard - won primaries in 
counties where religious right groups conducted election training seminars 
and distributed campaign guides laced with biblical references. (Although 
Nygaard's First Christian Church hosts a Citizens for Responsible Govern-
ment seminar, he says he didn't attend it and decided on his own to run for 
office.)


  "It is a much more widespread phenomenon than most of us realize," says 
Chip Perlez of Political Research Associates, a political watchdog organization 
in Boston.


  "The Christian Right is much more powerful in the Rocky Mountain West 
and the West Coast than it is in the East or the traditional Bible Belt. This is a 
particular brand of fundamentalist Christianity that's much more radical than 
the Bible Belt Christians."


  With a November ballot that focuses on several of the religious right's key 
issues - gay rights, school vouchers and limited taxes - as well as elections 
featuring newcomers with ties to conservative Christian churches, Colorado is 
among the states that the religious right apparently has targeted in 1992.


  "I would say the national Christian Coalition is interested in a state whose 
ballot had any issues or any concerned candidate with true moral standards - 
and by `moral standards' I mean biblical standards, really - that are what we 
consider traditional family values," says David Nelson, director of the Chris-
tian Coalition's Colorado chapter.


  "The national Christian Coalition would be more interested in the results 
of that state's election than a state where none of the issues are being discussed 
or elected on."


  "One reason the religious right is hard to get a handle on, and a reason that 
the national media was surprised in Houston (at the GOP national conven-
tion), was that they fly under the radar," says David Crane, vice president of 
People for the American Way, the liberal Washington, D.C. organization that 
monitors the religious right and other groups.


  "They work on obscure elections, not state house or congressional races. 
They focus on school boards, planning boards and hospital boards - elections 
where turnout traditionally is very light. Everyone looks at David Skaggs and 
the national picture. But the interesting thing is these stealth races - elections 
that people pay no attention to. Those are the models for what's going on. One 
day, people are going to wake up and find the religious right running schools, 
city councils and their congressional districts."


  That is what some see happening in San Diego County, Calif. Inn 1990, the 
religious right backed a slate of nearly 90 candidates, including the local direc-
tor of the Christian Coalition, for school boards, county council, hospital 
boards and other offices.


  Two-thirds of those candidates were elected, largely through campaigns 
conducted through fundamentalist churches. The candidates rejected the 
usual publicity of public debates, media interviews, candidate forums and 
sample questionnaires.


  Instead, volunteers for religious right candidates put fliers on cars in cer-
tain church parking lots, and campaigned by telephone using church directo-
ries. Volunteers distributing leaflets were instructed, in writing, to "be quiet 
about the ? flier project."


  One religious-right candidate, Tony Snesko, played down his religious 
beliefs during the Poway city council campaign. After his election, he began 
quoting scripture to support his opposition to gay-right initiatives.


  The success of largely unknown and inexperienced candidates astonished 
many San Diego citizens, spurring the formation of the Mainstream Voters 
Project, a nonpartisan watchdog group.


  "Our concern was that we had people elected to school boards, hospital 
boards, city councils, planning boards and other boards who did not cam-
paign visibly at all," said Rita Collier, a San Diego resident who helped form 
the Mainstream Voters Project.


  "It wouldn't have been so surprising if they hadn't been elected. Who'd 
have cared? But when they were elected, you began wondering how they were 
elected, and as we looked into it, we found an underground campaign net-
work among fundamentalist churches: phone banking, fliers in parking lots 
and less-visible means of getting out the word on candidates who, for the most 
part, had no precious experience."


  The newly elected board immediately had an impact on county policies. In 
Escondido, home of the Christian Voters League, a majority religious-right 
school board came within one vote of stripping an abstinence-based sex edu-
cation course of all information on birth control.


  In other San Diego school districts, newly elected conservative board mem-
bers objected to using federal Department of Agriculture surplus foods for 
school breakfast programs.


  "They said it was socialism and if we feed these children at school, it takes 
away from parental responsibility," Collier said.


  In November, about 200 religious-right candidates are on the San Diego 
ballots. The Christian Coalition also supported 16 candidates for the California 
legislature, with contributions ranging from $12,000 to $102,000. Twelve of the 
16 candidates will be on the ballot.


  "We expect the religious right to export their San Diego tactics around the 
U.S., to other communities that might be ripe for takeover," Crane says. "Colo-
rado and Oregon could become the next San Diegos."


  Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed, Jr. says San Diego is "a 
model of what Christians and evangelicals and pro-family Roman Catholics 
are attempting to do around the nation."


  "We're trying to generate as large a voter turnout as possible among our 
constituency by communicating with them in a way that does not attract the 
fire of our opponents," Reed told 1,000 people at the 1991 Road to Victory con-
ference sponsored by the coalition.


  During the past two years, the Christian Coalition sponsored Road To Vic-
tory conferences, where Christian Coalition officials pass out detailed manuals 
on the Republican delegate selection process in each state. This year Reed is 
distributing 40 million voter's guides to "pro-family" issues and candidates in 
dozens of elections, including Colorado candidate races and ballot initiatives.


  Local political activists in Colorado and other states are trained in seminars 
taught by the Christian Coalition Leadership School, Focus on the Family, Cit-
izens for Responsible Government and other Christian groups. Instructional 
pamphlets like Dan Dazlich's "A Christian Guide to Colorado's Political Sys-
tem" explain the election process. The seminars emphasize intense last-minute 
campaign blitzes that target conservative church congregations.


  "I think this will be the most effective coordinated activity by evangelical 
Christians that we've ever seen," Reed told The Washington Post earlier this 
month.


  From these seminars spring "pro-family" candidates and delegates with 
tremendous support from local church congregations. With most of Colora-
do's 35 evangelical ministries (including Focus on the Family) based in Colo-
rado Springs, the religious right is especially powerful there.


  Marcy Morrison, a Colorado Springs Republican, probably was the first 
Colorado candidate who realized the power behind her opponent for the Dis-
trict 22 state legislative seat.


  Newcomer Ken Gray was a graduate of the Christian Broadcast Network 
University's law school (now Regent University law school), which Pat Rob-
ertson established as a Bible-based law school. His campaign targeted evan-
gelical churches.


  Gray's primary campaign materials stressed his family values, but failed to 
discuss his anti-abortion stance - something that Gray reserved for "tar-
geted" audiences, he said at a New Life Church anti-abortion seminar.


  At the May GOP caucus in Colorado Springs, Gray walked away with 50 
percent of the delegates - unprecedented for an inexperienced, unknown 
candidate, and something "that gave us our first clue," Morrison said, "that 
we were in trouble."


  Although mainstream Republicans dismissed Morrison's fears, she cam-
paigned vigorously, spending twice as much as Gray. She won by 27 votes.


  Other Colorado Republicans, including incumbents Bonnie Allison, Stan 
Johnson and Marlene Fish, were defeated by newcomers. Penn Pfiffer, Lynn 
Watwood, Dan Nygaard, Pat Miller, Bryan Day, Bob McDonald, Drew Clark 
and Victor Mote all ran "pro-family" campaigns closely linked with conserva-
tive churches, and beat opponents who wrote them off.


  "He cam out of nowhere," Alllison said of Watwood, an attorney who has 
worked for the Rutherford Institute and Colorado for Family Values.


  "When I polled people in June, I was winning 2-to-1. My supporters 
assumed I'd be okay. Watwood got to his followers, and they all voted."


  Allison has since endorsed Democratic candidate Mike Feeley, and 
changed her party affiliation to Independent.


  "I think it's great that people are getting involved," says Dudley Brown, 
deputy campaign manager for Republican evangelical pastor Bryan Day's 
congressional campaign against David Skaggs.


  "If school vouchers, pro-family values and limited government are the 
tenets of what you call the religious right, then I think people should be happy 
to be associated with it," Brown said. "The question is, if (the religious right) 
tries to impose (its) religious beliefs on others, then we have to be careful not 
to make a state-sponsored religion. But debate about all this is pretty healthy."


  From Byran Day to Lyn Watwood, newcomer "pro-family" Republican 
candidates are opposed to abortion and gay rights, and in favor of school 
vouchers, limited government and legally requiring a balanced budget. Those 
are the issues that matter most to their targeted constituents.


  ?"When people talked to me, they asked how I felt about vouchers or abor-
tion," says Morrison.


  "Especially abortion, over and over. They didn't discuss experience or 
background or positions on other issues because they weren't interested. As 
soon as I said I didn't think government should be involved in abortion, it was 
the end of the conversation."


  Abortion is a key issue for the Eagle Forum, Concerned Women for Amer-
ica, Focus on the Family, Iowa's Stop ERA, and other religious right groups. 
Lon Mabon's Oregon Citizens Alliance, which is backing the state's anti-gay 
rights Measure 9 this November, also has sponsored two unsuccessful anti-
abortion ballot measures. The OCA also has opposed legislation for family 
leave and pre-kindergarten programs, objecting that the programs were anti-
business and anti-family.


  Anti-abortion activists, led my Schlafly's Eagle Forum, also are the chief 
opponents of Iowa's Equal Rights Amendment. Marlene Elwell, a Michigan 
Republican who was the Midwest coordinator for Robertson's 1988 presiden-
tial bid, directs Iowa's Stop ERA campaign. A "Stop ERA" fund-raising letter, 
written by Robertson described the Iowa ERA as a "feminist agenda ? that 
encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witch-
craft and become lesbians."


  In Colorado, Amendment 2's advocates include Colorado for Family Val-
ues, former U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong and University of Colorado football 
coach Bill McCartney, both opponents of abortion; Concerned Women for 
America; the Eagle Forum; Traditional Values Coalition; and the Christian 
Coalition. The ultimate goal, CFV chairman Will Perkins says, is to have a 
Constitutional amendment restricting homosexuals.


  "We operated a stealth campaign," CFV's Tony Marco told Christian 
American (the Christian Coalition's bimonthly newsletter), explaining CFV's 
signature gathering strategy for putting Amendment 2 on the November bal-
lot.


  "We went under their radar. They never knew what strength we had."


  Since then, Marco also has advised and shared material with gay-right 
opponents in Tampa, Fla., Portland, Maine, and Columbia, Mo. Anti-gay right 
brochures in those states, as well as Colorado and Oregon, liberally quote Paul 
Cameron, a Nebraska psychologist who believes people who are HIV-positive 
should be tattooed on their foreheads. (Cameron's controversial research on 
homosexual behavior caused both the American Psychological Association 
and the Nebraska Psychological Association to drop Cameron's membership, 
which CFV blames on political pressure from gays.)


  Tampa activists, led by Florida Christian Coalition director Tom Scott, and 
Portland activists succeeded in putting their initiatives on local ballots. 
Columbia activists are having trouble collecting enough signatures to qualify 
for an initiative.


  "It's fascinating what's happening around the country," says Eric Niewoe-
hner. "We're mobilizing a section of society that hasn't been involved in poli-
tics, working with lay representatives from churches that have historically 
been low-key. Conservative Christians here have almost had a disgust for pol-
itics in the past. Now we're getting together, working on issues. Sex education. 
Pro life. The school prayer issue. I'd rather have these issues in an election 
because then people will show up (who) are more issue-based."


  Voters almost never turn out en masse for local elections or party precinct 
caucuses. Few know the names of local school board members, or attend 
neighborhood precinct meetings. Often if you want to be a delegate or make 
sure your candidate has enough support to get on the ballot, it's as easy as 
showing up at a meeting.


  "In some precincts, you can take over a caucus with only five people," says 
Denver Republican Diane Dillingham, who has hosted two precinct meetings 
where she was the only attendee.


  "Send 40 people from your church, and you can control the caucus."


  With the help of caucus and candidate election seminar leaders, that's 
exactly what the religious right did this year. Throughout the U.S., conserva-
tive Christians gained control, or near-control, of Republican caucuses and 
conventions in at least 12 states, including Colorado.


  Kansas Republicans estimated that 84 percent of their precinct delegates 
were members of the religious right. Fifty-four of more than 300 delegates in 
Kansas were arrested in 1991 Operation Rescue protests.


  In Colorado, religious right delegates composed between 40 percent and 50 
percent of caucuses along the Front Range, targeting "certain counties - Boul-
der, Jeffco, Weld and Larimer," says Republican Chris O'Dell.


  "If they don't control the party machinery up there now, they will soon."


  Nelson says his local Christian Coalition office has nothing to do with the 
success of conservative Christian candidates. He credits other groups, includ-
ing Citizens for Responsible Government, a Christian anti-abortion group that 
distributed leaflets in congregation parking lots on the Sunday preceding the 
August primary and plans to repeat that tactic in November.


  "I don't call the Christian Coalition that effective," says Day staffer Dudley 
Brown. "I was a delegate to Houston. I think that was the Republican Party, 
right there. There are liberals in the party that are calling that extreme. Look at 
our platforms. Always conservative. Always have been. Did the religious right 
nutty zealots do all that? No. It's been around for a while."


  Although religious right candidates usually take pains to disassociate their 
campaigns from the Christian Coalition, it is Robertson's organization that 
ignited those campaigns and whose agenda goes beyond ensuring a public 
forum for its issues.


  Robertson has said that he wants the religious right to control the Republi-
can Party by 1996. That would save a country controlled by a "tightly knit 
cabal whose goal is nothing less than a new order for the human race under 
the domination of Lucifer and his followers," Robertson wrote in his 1991 
book, "The New World Order."


  The alternative to the current U.S. government system, according to many 
conservative Christians, is Christian Reconstructionism, a movement founded 
by Californian Rousas John Rushdoony. Christian Reconstructionism is based 
on the belief that civil law would be grounded in a literal interpretation of the 
Bible


  Rushdoony is a regular on Robertson's "700 Club," envisions a theocratic 
United States. Churches, not welfare systems, would be responsible for the 
poor. Private schools would replace public schools. Whipping and capital 
punishment would punish prisoners, replacing prisons. That vision appeals to 
many who consider themselves "pro-family" and anti-government.


  "They're trying to turn the country into a theocracy, and we're not going to 
let it happen," Anne Witte, a moderate Republican in Washington state, told 
the Seattle Times. Republicans formed the New Agenda, a pro-choice, pro-
controlled-growth group to counter the impact of religious right Republicans


  Other mainstream Republicans responded to the religious right by re-regis-
tering as Democrats or Independent. Many are pessimistic: "Wait and see," 
said on Colorado Springs Republican. "They're going to make a dent in text-
books, they'll censor everything but the books they consider acceptable."


  Members of the religious right say that such changes are what this country 
needs.


  "It's obvious we need new people in government, and the Christian have 
been in the background for too many years," the Colorado Christian Coali-
tion's Nelson says.


  "The fact they're getting involved now is good for everybody. We talk 
about traditional family values and morality, and the country needs both. We 
used to be PG-rated, and now we're an X-rated society."


  To maintain the momentum, the activism will continue after Election Day. 
FOcus on the Family and the Rocky Mountain Family Council are sponsoring 
a Community Impact Seminar in Colorado Springs next month to provide 
"practical guidance on how to speak on behalf of family concerns."


  The same seminar, held last month in Denver, provides "the Biblical basis 
for political activism," according to a promotional letter about the event. The 
letter described Focus on the Family's "expanded ? involvement in the public 
policy arena," which the organization describes as educational and nonparti-
san.


  Mainstream Republicans question whether such seminars violate laws lim-
iting the politics of tax-exempt churches. Dillingham admires the religious 
right's campaign coordination, but questions their forums.


  "They say all they're doing is educating, not advocating, but where does 
educating become advocating?" she asked.


  "We need to explore where they break down the traditional separation of 
church and state, like training sessions in their church, like the tacit compli-
ance of ministers when pamphlets are passed out, or passing out "voters 
guides" in churches that are tax exempt but clearly indicate which candidate 
to vote for."


  Other Republicans think it's too late to ask those questions.


  "I think there elections are a warning in neon light to Republicans," says 
Republican Claire Traylor.


  "Either we wake up to it and do something else, or we organize to recon-
struct our party to it represents a broad base, the old values, and eliminate 
some of these new things being promoted by what I think is a small minority. 
But Lord knows if it's small anymore. We may have already lost the battle in 
Colorado. You and I don't know that. We'll find that out in the election, I 
guess.


  The Organizations


  While Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition is usually identified with the 
religious right, dozens of other organizations espouse the same values and 
causes. These organizations are among the most prominent groups in Colo-
rado and nationwide. The national groups generally associated with state and 
local affiliates that may have different names. Membership figures were not 
available for all the organizations.


  American Family Association


  President: Rev. Don Wildmon. National Membership: 450,000


  Wildmon also has formed the American Family Association Law Center, 
which provides legal assistance in religious-right causes. AFA provided finan-
cial and organizing support to the Take Back Tampa Political Committee, 
which is fighting a Tampa, Fla., gay right ordinance. It also is active nationally 
in challenges to the National Endowment for the Arts.


  


  Christian Action Network


  Founder: Martin Mawyer, a former Moral Majority official


  Their current issue: "educat(ing) the American public on what Bill Clinton 
has promised the homosexual community" and working to repeal gay-rights 
ordinances in Colorado and Oregon. Creators of an anti-gay rights/anti-
Clinton television commercial that is airing nationally on commercial and 
Christian television stations.


  


  Christian Coalition


  President: Pat Robertson. National membership: 400 chapters in 46 states, 
with 175,000 members.


  The coalition sponsors annual Road to Victory conferences to educate 
members on campaigning for local and state elections, as well as Christian 
Coalition Leadership School seminars throughout the United States to train 
political activists to conduct civic and partisan campaigns, hoping to train 
25,000 activists by 1995. The group also supports efforts to overturn gay-rights 
ordinances, challenge public school textbooks and library books, oppose fam-
ily leave and some federal assistance programs, including federally funded 
school breakfasts.


  


  Citizens for Excellence in Education


  President: Bob Simonds.


  CEE's mission is to elect members of the group to all 16,000 school boards 
throughout the United States. Simonds also founded the National Association 
of Christian Educators and has published pamphlets and booklet, including 
"How to Elect Christians to Public Offices," a questionnaire for school-board 
candidates. CEE also mounts challenges to public school textbooks and library 
books. In the 1991-1992 school year, CEE activists objected to "Little Red 
Riding Hood," J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye," John Steinbeck's "Of 
Mice and Men" and other books, basing those objections on perceived refer-
ences to satanism, occultism and New Age beliefs.


  Colorado for Family Values


  Chairman: Will Perkins


  CFV began in 1991 to defeat a legislative initiative to protect homosexuals 
from harassment and discrimination, and a Colorado Springs gay-rights initia-
tive. CFV is the driving force behind Amendment 2, and has assisted in anti-
gay rights campaigns in Oregon, Columbia, Mo., Portland, Maine, and Tampa, 
Fla. CFV's board of directors include Sharon Bath, who attended the 1991 
Christian Coalition "Road to Victory" conference; Barbara Sheldon of the Col-
orado chapter of the Traditional Values Coalition; Randy Hicks of Focus on the 
Family; the Rev. Leon Kelly, the anti-gang activist; and Bert Nelson, president 
of the Colorado chapter of Concerned Women for America.


  


  Concerned Women for America


  President and founder: Beverly LaHay. Membership: Given as 500,000 to 
600,000 nationwide.


  This ultraconservative anti-feminist, anti-gay rights group supported U.S. 
Supreme Court nominees Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, and has actively 
mounted grass-roots campaigns in many state and local elections. CWFA is 
fighting Iowa's Equal Rights Amendment and gay-rights measures in Colo-
rado, Oregon, Georgia, Florida and Maine. The group also has challenged 
public-school textbooks and library books for failing to promote biblical val-
ues.


  


  Eagle Forum


  President and Founder: Phyllis Schafly. National Membership: Given as 
50,000 to 80,000


  This organization was active in locally based battles against abortion right, 
day care, family leave and other issues, especially the 1992 battle to defeat 
Iowa's ERA. An offshoot of the Eagle Forum successfully campaigned in Jack-
sonville, Fla., to have the school board adopt "Teen Aid," a sex-education cur-
riculum that advocates abstinence as the only form of birth control. A Planned 
Parenthood suit against the program claims it is religiously based, inaccurate 
and fails to meet state statutory requirements for sex education. Eagle Forum, 
with Colorado's Focus On The Family, also was active in pressuring the Ala-
bama state school board to ban HIV/AIDS education material from state-
approved school materials.


  


  Focus On The Family


  President: James Dobson.


  This group is based in Colorado Springs and has a $60 million annual bud-
get. It is active nationwide in supporting anti-abortion and anti-gay rights can-
didates. Focus on the Family has several associate coalitions of special-interest 
groups who purpose, Dobson has said, is to ensure legislators "can no longer 
write off the concerns of conservative Christian families."


  Active in opposing gay-rights and equal-rights amendment ordinances, 
and in challenges to public school textbooks and library books, Focus On The 
Family sponsors Community Impact Seminars, "encouag(ing) Christian 
involvement at a grassroots level," in Colorado and other states.


  


  National Empowerment Television


  Director: Paul Weyrich, co-founder with Jerry Falwell of Moral Majority.


  NET stresses issues important to the religious right, featuring programs 
with high-ranking government officials including cabinet secretaries and U.S. 
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.


  


  Rutherford Institute


  Co-founder: R.J. Rushdoony


  The institute is based at Virginia Beach, Va., near the Christian Coalition 
national headquarters. Rushdoony is a leading Christian reconstructionist 
who advocates restructuring civil law to be grounded on a literal interpreta-
tion of the Bible. The institute focuses on anti-abortion right and "religious lib-
erty" cases advocating public prayer, including creationism in public-school 
curricula. Rutherford Institute materials are used by gay-rights opponents in 
Colorado and Oregon.


  


  Traditional Values Coalition


  President: Lou Sheldon. Membership: 7,000 conservative Christian 
churches in California and representatives in other states, including Colorado, 
where TVC of Colorado chairman Barbara Sheldon is an executive board 
member of Colorado for Family Values.


  TVC is a formidable force in California, campaigning against abortion and 
gay-rights laws. Working with other "pro-family" groups, Sheldon has 
announced plans to conduct 40 to 50 seminars throughout California "to train 
our public affairs representatives to go back to their churches and educate peo-
ple before talking about voter registration.

"You can have Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson stand in front of a 
bank of microphones and endorse our candidates, or you can quietly 
send out a pro-family slate that tells our community who the candi-
dates are our ballot."                                                    


  -  Ralph Reed, Jr.




"America is at a crossroads. Either she returns to her Christian 
roots? or she will continue to legalize sodomy, slaughter innocent 
babies, destroy the minds of her children, squander her resources and 
sink into oblivion.


  -  Pat Robertson




"We want ? as soon as possible to see a majority of the Republican 
Party in the hands of pro-family Christians by 1996."


  -   Pat Robertson




"It's very naive to think that there's a peaceful co-existence today 
(between liberals and conservatives), and the bottom line is, it's either 
us or them.


  -  The Rev. Billy Falling, Christian Voters 
League