Fundamentalist Group Raising Funds to Help Vernon’s Legal Effort : Religion: Donations will be used to aid the assistant police chief in his lawsuit. He is suing after the LAPD investigated whether he injected his Christian views into his work.

A fundamentalist Christian group is raising money for Assistant Police Chief Robert L. Vernon’s legal case and is asking donors to send contributions to a conservative organization that has been the courtroom bulwark of Operation Rescue in California.

The Friends of Bob Vernon began sending out fund-raising letters at the start of the year, said the group’s chairman, Bob Phillips, who runs a large Christian camp in the Fresno area where Vernon has lectured.

Phillips said the campaign’s purpose is to help defend Vernon, a longtime elder at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, from an alleged “witch hunt” stemming from a Los Angeles Police Department inquiry into whether Vernon has improperly injected his religious views into police operations.

Phillips asks in his fund-raising letter that contributors send checks to the Western Center for Law and Religious Freedom in Sacramento, earmarked “Vernon vs. Los Angeles.” Lawyers affiliated with the center have represented Operation Rescue in two major federal lawsuits stemming from its blockades of abortion clinics and family planning centers in Los Angeles. While the center can assist Vernon in the lawsuit, it cannot pay the legal fees of the private attorneys because it is a nonprofit organization.

One of the fund-raising appeals states: “City officials and the media in Los Angeles have suggested that Christians who allow their faith to be made known publicly--who are active in their churches and teach Bible classes or preach--who believe in traditional values and biblical roles in marriage and family--and who opposed homosexuality on moral grounds (even though they fully abide by all laws prohibiting discrimination)--are disqualified to hold responsible public office.

“This challenge against (Asst.) Chief Vernon has the potential to threaten every Christian police officer, indeed every Christian public official in the state and the nation. Christians risk intimidation and self-censorship concerning their faith if they must face the kind of relentless media and public attack endured by Chief Vernon over the past year because of their faithful stand for their religious convictions.”

David L. Llewellyn Jr., Western Center’s president and special counsel, said the center had been providing “legal analysis” to Vernon’s lawyers, but does not have a formal role in the case. “We concur with his attorneys that his rights are being violated, that this is a witch hunt,” Llewellyn said.

He said he could not say how much money has come in.

David Casterline, Vernon’s principal lawyer in Los Angeles, acknowledged that he and Vernon’s other attorneys have talked to Llewellyn about the case. But he said the fund-raising letters inaccurately implied that the Western Center had joined Vernon’s defense team.

“They may become involved but I wouldn’t speculate as to when and if,” Casterline said. “We have not been able to reach an agreement as to the nature and scope of their involvement or the role they would play in financial support.”

Casterline said his firm had received no money from any of the fund-raising efforts. He said that to date Vernon “absolutely” had paid the bills himself.

Llewellyn said that as a tax-exempt law firm the center could not disseminate funds to Vernon’s private lawyers. He said whatever money is raised will be used by the center to offset costs it incurred in working on the case and investigating related issues.

Last November, Vernon sued the city of Los Angeles, the Police Commission and several individuals claiming that his 1st Amendment rights of religious freedom had been violated by a Police Department inquiry launched last June after City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky asked for an investigation of whether Vernon had improperly injected his fundamentalist views into Police Department business.

Lawyers for the city have maintained that there has been no violation of Vernon’s rights because the inquiry dealt only with his on-duty conduct and not with his beliefs.

A brief inquiry headed by one of Chief Daryl F. Gates’ assistants ended with no action against Vernon.

High-ranking LAPD officials have made sworn statements that Vernon elevated the test scores of fundamentalist Christians seeking promotions, advocated that officers be allowed to wear crosses on their uniforms, and attempted to prevent the arrest of Operation Rescue protesters because of his opposition to abortion. Vernon and his supporters in the department have denied the charges.

Llewellyn said the center had offered to help Vernon, even though Operation Rescue had been unable to persuade Vernon and other LAPD officials not to allow officers to use a controversial martial arts weapon--called a nunchaku--while arresting Operation Rescue protesters who were blockading abortion clinics. Western Center attorneys sued the Police Department, and last June the department agreed to stop using nunchakus against protesters.

The center views Vernon’s suit as “a test case because it raises one of the most fundamental tenets of our constitutional democracy--that you cannot disqualify someone from public office because of his religious faith,” said Llewellyn.

Last Monday, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson threw out a substantial portion of Vernon’s case. However, he said it was possible that the LAPD investigation of Vernon may have trampled on a constitutional protection mandating the separation of church and state.

On Friday, Skip Miller and Andrew White, Los Angeles’ special counsel, filed a new brief asking Wilson to throw out the remainder of the case. The lawyers assert that the Police Department’s inquiry into Vernon’s activities did not violate the separation of church and state and cited several cases that they say show “beyond question” that there was no such violation. “The chief’s inquiry had no chilling effect on Christianity, on fundamentalism, on the Grace Community Church or on any religion,” the brief states.