Liberal Lobby to Act as Monitor of Religious Bias in Campaigns

A liberal lobby, condemning the use of political score cards by Christian fundamentalists, announced plans Monday to monitor the 1986 congressional election campaigns and report on instances of religious intolerance.

“In the political process, no one has the right to claim to speak for God,” John Buchanan, chairman of People For the American Way, said at a news conference.

Leaders of the organization complained that political and religious figures increasingly are trying to influence voters by claiming that their views are those of God, and by framing attacks on opponents in religious or moral terms.

The group singled out the Christian Voice’s annual congressional score card. It charged that the conservative evangelical organization masks a highly political scoring system as a report on morality. In a newly released report, the Christian Voice’s list of “key moral” issues on which congressmen were rated by how they voted included the confirmation of Edwin Meese III as attorney general and aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, known as contras .

Priest Co-Chairs Program

Father Robert Drinan, a Catholic priest and former Massachusetts congressman, said that he once received a zero rating from the organization. Drinan, a co-chairman of the monitoring program of People For the American Way, said that religious leaders are entitled to express their views, but added, “Constitutionally protected speech may also be constitutionally threatening speech.”

“I think it’s wrong to to say the communist is an anti-Christ,” Drinan said. “ . . . we should not claim that God is on our side.”

Gary Jarmin, legislative director of Christian Voice, said that the organization notes in its reports that the scores are not intended to measure a congressman’s personal moral behavior or relationship with God.

“If anybody is trying to mask their position, I think it’s the People For the American Way, who are trying to cloak their left-wing liberal views under the banner of the American way,” Jarmin said. “Talk about arrogance! Do they assume that anybody who disagrees with them is un-American?”

Campaign Letters Cited

The citizens’ group also complained that Robert Scribner, Republican opponent of Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica), wrote campaign letters claiming that God told him to run against Levine and promising to “take territory for our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Scribner said in an interview that he did not mean to offend non-Christians with his statement, and that he meant that “we are taking territory for that principle, that we love our neighbors as ourselves.” He noted that the letters were sent to a group of Christian pastors, and said: “If you’re sending a letter to an attorney or an accountant, you probably would use terminology that they can understand.”