Forget the Reindeer--Santa Will Just Leap Into Action

Hollywood Boulevard has more than its share of strange sights at any time of year. But try to top Santa Claus and three elves jumping out of a helicopter and rappelling down the side of a building.

Santa’s scheduled stunt on Saturday is part of the L. Ron Hubbard Winter Wonderland, sponsored by--who else?--the Church of Scientology. The 11th annual free event near Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue kicked off last week with the installation of a 65-foot white-fir Christmas tree, which upon arrival was still bearing some snow from its former home on a mountainside near Redding.

Church officials, who say they are expecting about 40,000 visitors by Christmas, go to great lengths to bring winter to our semidesert clime. For one day in mid-December, for instance, they will fill the Wonderland with 19 tons of snow. (Well, actually it’s ground ice.)

But the Winter Wonderland won’t ignore the reality of life on the streets. A church spokeswoman says that proceeds from photographs with Santa ($5 apiece) will be donated to a drug rehabilitation program. There is also talk of setting up a special phone so runaway youths can call home for the holidays.

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SHEILA OF NAZARETH?: “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” the disciple Nathanael asks in the New Testament, to which the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the conservative Traditional Values Coalition, adds, “I don’t know that anything good can come from Santa Monica.”

His comment was prompted by this fall’s successful run for Assembly by Sheila James Kuehl, the first openly gay candidate to win a seat in the California Legislature.

Kuehl loved it, especially since a quick look at the Gospel of John shows that Nathanael, urged by his friend Philip to “come and see,” goes on to meet Jesus and promptly declares him to be none other than the son of God.

“I doubt that the Rev. Sheldon actually meant to compare me to Jesus, but when he used that quote, I guess the answer is ‘come and see,’ ” said Kuehl, a resident of the beach city known for electing liberal and even radical candidates.

She also liked the part in the next verse about Nathanael being an Israelite “in whom there is no guile.”

“That’s quite a concept for a politician,” said Kuehl, an attorney and former actress who was featured on television as Zelda in “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.”

Sheldon’s remarks came in a telephone interview with a New York Times reporter, who included them in an article from Dallas about Kuehl’s star turn at a meeting of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

“She has a right to run,” said Sheldon, head of a conservative church network based in Anaheim. But he went on to quote John 1:46, in which Nathanael denigrates Jesus’ hometown, and to add his own remark about Kuehl’s political home base.

“We have not had, from our perspective, anything good in terms of elected officials from the Santa Monica area,” Sheldon explained later. “It’s been always those that promoted those things that are quite opposite to our basic conservative, pro-family concerns.”

He said the name of state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) comes to mind.