Religious Right May Be in for a Fight : Television: Several groups opposed to the Rev. Donald Wildmon’s boycott tactics plan to show support for targeted corporations.

Last month, the Rev. Donald Wildmon, the prime mover in the religious right’s attempt to banish TV programs it considers offensive, launched a boycott of two corporations that sponsored what he labeled “filth” on network television.

This month, several organizations that see Wildmon and his tactics as a “McCarthyesque threat to freedom of expression” have begun to fight back.

“Corporations have been hesitant to stand up to him in the past. They have been afraid of any sort of controversy,” said Arthur Kropp, president of People for the American Way, an organization dedicated to protecting the First Amendment. “And the problem is that there has not been any counterforce. Ninety-eight percent of Americans don’t even know who Wildmon is. They don’t even know there is this war going on. But this is where we’re going to draw the line.”

For example:

* People for the American Way is launching its own letter-writing campaign to urge Pfizer and S.C. Johnson & Sons, the targets of the boycott, to resist Wildmon’s “threats.” The organization is also planning to place ads in major newspapers around the country this fall denouncing Wildmon as a man who “wants to take away the freedom of choice from the American people and become the sole arbiter of what we can and cannot see on television,” Kropp said.

* The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has urged its members and readers of gay magazines and newspapers nationwide to fight Wildmon by writing letters of appreciation to these companies for buying commercial time on programs that present “positive and accurate lesbian and gay images.” Wildmon’s American Family Assn. had cited Pfizer, based in New York City, and S.C. Johnson, based in Racine, Wis., as being among “the top sponsors of pro-homosexual programs.” Among the programs that an AFA study found objectionable because of their inclusion of gay or lesbian characters were “The Simpsons,” “L.A. Law,” “The Golden Girls” and “The Hogan Family.”

* The Freedom of Expression Network, a group of about 25 organizations based in Los Angeles, plans to meet at the end of this month to devise its own strategy to combat Wildmon. Last month, the group--which includes the Hollywood Policy Center, the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Directors Guild, the Creative Coalition and the Writers Guild--contacted the top 50 sponsors of network television shows when Wildmon threatened a boycott of companies that advertised on the abortion-themed CBS movie, “Absolute Strangers.”

“We have to maintain a countervailing voice,” said Kathy Garmezy, executive director of the Hollywood Policy Center. “Wildmon badgers these corporations constantly, and after awhile it begins to seem like no one else is out there. When we wrote to them, many of these sponsors told us that it was nice to finally hear from someone else.”

The latest battle stems from a letter Wildmon said he sent to 750,000 people on his direct-mailing list and to an additional 175,000 churches. In it, he charged that S.C. Johnson and Pfizer “were two leading sponsors of network TV sex, violence and profanity in the fall of 1990. . . . By their actions, S.C. Johnson and Pfizer show they don’t care about the filth they pay network TV to teach your children. Don’t give (them) your money. Boycott them!”

Enclosed with the letter were prewritten postcards addressed to the chairman of each company stating the sender’s intention to boycott the company’s products. Wildmon also enclosed a request for money to help his organization pay for the cost of publicizing the boycott.

In an interview with The Times last week, Wildmon said he intends to spend more than $1 million to promote the yearlong boycotts. He said the AFA was trying to influence the kind of programs advertisers are willing to pay for because the networks have been swayed by the opinions of “the radical homosexuals, the feminists and the anti-Christian bigots” for too long.

Wildmon said Pfizer--a pharmaceutical drug manufacturer that also makes Barbasol shaving cream, Ben-Gay and Visine--and S.C. Johnson--whose products include Agree shampoo, Pledge and Raid--were singled out after AFA members screened network programs last fall for incidents of sex, violence, profanity and anti-Christian behavior. Among the shows that featured objectionable material, he said, were the movies “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Fatal Attraction,” and the series “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill,” “Over My Dead Body,” “Thanksgiving Day,” “Broken Badges,” “L.A. Law,” “Cop Rock,” “Hunter,” “Knots Landing” and “Cheers.”

Both Pfizer and S.C. Johnson told The Times that they would not change their advertising policies as a result of the boycott.

Pfizer said in a prepared statement that “the company considers the boycott an arbitrary action that is totally unwarranted and misleading,” adding that the company has “serious doubts about the validity of monitoring procedures that can lead to such wrongful and unjustified conclusions.”

A spokesman at S.C. Johnson said his company’s guidelines call for avoiding programs “whose appeal is based on excessive violence or the exploitation of controversial material such as sex or nudity.” He called the policy “socially responsible and in line with the corporation’s high ethical standards.”

Groups that oppose Wildmon insist that his boycotts have no economic impact. They point to a Wall Street Journal article that surveyed retailers around the country two years ago during a Wildmon-sponsored boycott against Clorox and Mennen, which concluded that there had been no drop in consumer demand for those company’s products.

These groups also point to a study conducted by the Roper Organization during the same boycott that showed that while 34% of Americans were aware of a boycott called by “religious groups against companies who sponsor television programs these groups consider offensive,” less than 2% of those polled could name the targeted companies. The study also found that the vast majority of Americans opposed such boycotts on principle or because viewers can simply turn the channel if they do not like a particular program.

So why not ignore Wildmon and his campaign?

People for the American Way’s Kropp said that while Wildmon has “no real power except the power to frighten and intimidate,” he is incredibly successful at generating torrents of letters that induce companies into concluding that they have a significant problem on their hands.