ELECTIONS / 53RD ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Abortion, Recession Dominating Campaign : Republicans: Redondo Beach Mayor W. Brad Parton, who calls himself a ‘bold conservative,’ denies being beholden to the religious right.

Not long after W. Brad Parton was elected mayor of Redondo Beach three years ago, it became clear that his conservative brand of Republican politics had much in common with the religious right.

Parton, then just 29, quickly made a name for himself. A “born-again” Christian, he declared war on adult magazines sold at news racks. He demanded that a South Bay adult school teaching a New Age religion course also offer Bible studies.

When Planned Parenthood supporters rented a meeting room at a Redondo Beach bank, the mayor, who opposes abortion, called a bank officer to complain. The group’s use of the facility was canceled.

Parton stirred controversy again in May when he opposed issuance of a liquor permit for a gay pride event in a city park and was accused of bigotry by a City Council colleague.

Less than a month later, aided by substantial financial backing from a group of business people closely allied with conservative Christian groups, Parton swept past a field of moderates and won the Republican primary in the newly drawn 53rd Assembly district, which stretches along the coast from Venice to Torrance.

Now, little more than two weeks before the Nov. 3 election, Parton is running away from his record.

He insists he is a mainstream candidate and denies that he is beholden to the religious right. “The fact is, it’s not true,” he said. “What’s their agenda? I don’t know what their agenda is.”

Parton said his agenda is simple: Finding more jobs for a once prosperous area reeling from a weak economy and deep cuts in defense spending. Parton’s No. 2 priority is voting out the state’s most powerful Democrat, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco.

He blames Brown for driving jobs out of the state by blocking sweeping reforms of the state’s workers’ compensation system. He is critical of both the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration for taking an adversarial approach to regulating businesses.

A pension planner with his own insurance services company in Santa Monica, Parton said he will bring a businessman’s perspective to the Legislature.

Despite his efforts to define himself as a “bold conservative” who is independent of right-wing influence, questions linger about the 32-year-old mayor and the kind of legislator he will be if elected.

One of those doubting him is a colleague on the Redondo Beach City Council, Barbara J. Doerr, also a Republican. Doerr was one of the five candidates defeated by Parton in the GOP primary. She has since endorsed Democrat Debra Bowen in the Assembly race.

Ironically, it was Doerr who gave Parton his start in Redondo Beach government by appointing him to the city’s Park and Recreation Commission.

After losing his first bid for City Council, Parton ran for mayor in 1989 and won. To do so, he lent his campaign $33,835 in his bid for a job that paid $589 a month.

“When he got into office there was a different Brad Parton,” Doerr said. “I think he does have an agenda. . . . Once he is in Sacramento, he will certainly join forces with the ultra-right wing of the Republican Party.”

Parton describes himself as “pro-life” and makes no secret that he personally opposes abortion: “Ideally, I would love to say I wish no one would get abortions and we would end it.”

But Parton said he does not believe it is the government’s role to “outlaw, criminalize (or) send to jail someone who has an abortion in the first trimester” of pregnancy.

Instead, he favors restrictions on abortion, including a requirement that minors obtain parental consent before terminating a pregnancy. He opposes use of government funds to pay for abortions.

Parton’s position on the issue has won him friends.

The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, which represents a statewide network of churches, said Parton’s election is considered “very crucial” because he is “up-and-coming” at a time when term limits are going to change the makeup of the Legislature.

In a voter guide to be distributed at churches, Parton is listed as supporting the Traditional Values Coalition’s positions: opposition to abortion, gay rights, pornography and tax increases, and support for educational choice.

By the end of September, allies of the religious right had pumped more than $90,000 into Parton’s Assembly campaign. That amounts to over a third of his total fund raising.

The largest amount--$60,000 in contributions and loans--came from the Allied Business Political Action Committee of Mission Viejo. The committee draws its financial support from four individuals or families who have been major contributors this year to religious right candidates and causes throughout the state: Robert Hurtt, owner of Container Supply Co. in Garden Grove; Howard F. Ahmanson Jr. of Irvine, an heir to the Home Savings & Loan fortune; Edward Atsinger III of Camarillo, who owns Salem Communications, a Christian radio network, and Roland and Lila Hinz of Mission Hills, publishers of a group of dirt bike magazines.

Parton received $12,500 more directly from Hurtt’s Container Supply Co., $10,000 from the Hurtt Family Trust and $2,500 from Ahmanson’s firm, Fieldstead & Co.

Family PAC, a Sacramento-based political committee that supports candidates who “hold conservative Christian traditional family values” and which has received much of its money from the same four donors, gave Parton $5,000. The California Pro-Life Council provided $150.

Parton flatly denies that he is part of a political crusade by the religious right. “The fact is I’m not and I haven’t been,” he said. “I believe I’m very mainstream. I’m not going to allow myself to get labeled this way or that way and so on. People can take me for my record.”

He said the organizations that have contributed heavily to his campaign do so because “they think I’m a conservative business person and that I will make a lot of votes that would go along with the conservative position.

“These are the same groups that helped Ronald Reagan, that helped (Atty. Gen.) Dan Lungren, that helped (Rep.) Dana Rohrabacher, that helped (Assemblyman) Jerry Felando,” Parton said. “Unless I’m missing something, I don’t think there’s anything hidden behind it. I really don’t. There isn’t with me anyway.”

Parton said he disagrees with the religious right on some issues. He opposes prayer in schools and believes in sex education.

“I believe in preventing unwanted pregnancies,” he said. “I get a little irritated sometimes when people take one position on abortion and yet are kind of hesitant about trying to prevent unwanted pregnancies.”

However, Parton said he objects to discussion of abortion or homosexuality in the classroom and does not believe “they should be handing out condoms in school.”

Parton’s philosophy is that parents have the responsibility to handle those issues. He favors giving parents the right to obtain a voucher or tax credits if their children choose to opt out of public schools and attend private schools.

But in a reversal of an earlier position, Parton now opposes a proposed initiative that would provide a $2,500 voucher for students to attend private school. “The dollar figure . . . is too high,” he said, but added that he continues to support the concept of educational choice. “I don’t think it is fair that only wealthy kids get to go to the school of their choice,” he said.

Parton said he believes it should be up to the teacher whether creationism--a religious theory of the origin of the universe--is taught in school along with evolution.

When it comes to gay rights, Parton said he would have voted against legislation recently signed by Gov. Pete Wilson that outlaws job discrimination against gays and lesbians.

“I do not support bills that give people preferential treatment based upon their personal relationships and who they have relationships with. It’s none of the government’s business. It’s nobody’s business,” Parton said. “People should be protected from job discrimination for all reasons.”

Parton said he does not believe that homosexuality is “necessarily a moral lifestyle” and he would discourage it.

In May, Parton sparked controversy when he objected to granting a permit for the South Bay Gay and Lesbian Community Organization to sell liquor at a gay pride event in a Redondo Beach park.

“I believe this is a family community,” Parton told the City Council. “And I don’t believe our public parks should be used by organizations such as this. I believe what people do in their own homes is their own business and nobody else’s business, but when it’s carried over to be advertised and to be solicited and to be throwing around their lifestyle in a public park, I don’t believe it’s appropriate.”

Parton said in an interview last week that he raised the issue because he objected to a double standard between different groups. Several weeks earlier, he said, a Christian school had been denied use of public school facilities because of concern about separation of church and state.