Estrich, Kristol Spar Over Impact of Religious Right on Politics : Debate: The liberal behind Dukakis’ failed presidential bid and the conservative GOP strategist speak before several hundred at University of Judaism.

Newly pregnant with a second child, Susan Estrich was wandering around the 1992 Republican Convention in Houston when a woman approached.

“You’re the baby killer,” the woman said to Estrich, the liberal who managed Democrat Michael Dukakis’ 1988 failed presidential campaign.

“I took a deep breath,” Estrich said at a debate with prominent conservative Republican strategist William Kristol over the impact of the “religious right” on American politics.

“You don’t know me at all. That is not who I am. That is not what I am.”

Estrich, addressing several hundred people at the University of Judaism in the Sepulveda Pass, said, “If this is a sign of how politics is going to be fought out, then we are all in deep trouble.”

Estrich and Kristol, who has been credited with laying much of the intellectual groundwork for the Republican resurgence, proved Thursday night that the debate can be conducted with civility. She called him “the real genius of political geniuses.” He called her “very thoughtful.”

But both agreed the emergence of the religious right has sparked hot-button differences among voters across the nation--particularly on issues such as school prayer, gay rights and abortion.

And on the underlying issue itself--the role of religion.

“A more religious America would be better than a more secular America,” declared Kristol, who now runs Project for the Republican Future, a Washington think tank, after serving as chief of staff to former Vice President Dan Quayle.

“I am not afraid of people who are Christian having power in this country,” Estrich retorted. “Last time I checked, they did. They do. They always have.”

She added moments later, “What I resent about the religious right . . . is their imposing their religion and their religious views on the rest of us.”

About one-third of voters in the 1994 election identified themselves to pollsters as “white, evangelical, born-agains,” Estrich said. That’s up from 18% in 1988, she said.

Estrich, now a law professor at USC, also teaches an undergraduate political science class. The most eager students, she said--the ones who grab her sleeve after class--are consistently the most conservative.

The religious right, she said, has “energized” the Republican Party.

Kristol countered that Christian conservatives are “not driving the Republican agenda,” and that on some issues, such as abortion, the religious right was “in retreat.”

But Estrich said: “They’re playing, and playing for keeps. The question is: are we?”

Positioned on stage--as in her politics--on Kristol’s left, Estrich said that on school prayer, pressure from the right has put the “wall” of separation between church and state “very much in danger.”

If school kids began the day with a prayer, Kristol responded, “America would not cease to be a free country.” It also would not threaten the union, he said, if the Christian club at a public school has the same after-hours access to a meeting room as the 4-H Club.

And, in a lobbying bid for school vouchers, he said it’s unfair for Christian conservatives to pay taxes that support public schools, and then have to cough up more cash for private school or schooling at home.

“If you don’t like school prayer, support school choice,” he said.

The debate was the first of a lecture series, designed primarily for Jewish audiences, in which prominent speakers from around the nation are scheduled to discuss topics of national interest.

Moving to the issue of gay rights, Kristol said he saw evidence of an anomaly, noting that the rise in influence of the religious right in recent years has coincided with the most dramatic expansion of rights for gays in U. S. history.

That, he said, was persuasive evidence that the power of the religious right is not yet so formidable.

Estrich demurred, saying politicians interested in advancing gay rights proceed with the greatest caution because of the fear of backlash.

Recall, she said, the outrage that greeted President Clinton’s effort to allow gays to serve openly in the military. Politically, she said, “It was a terrible mistake. But it was also the right thing to do. Will any President ever do that again?”

On abortion, Kristol said one did not have to be “a member of the religious right” to be offended by the “most liberal and permissive abortion law . . . in the western world.”

That the law still stands, he said, is more evidence that the influence of the religious right should not be cause for alarm among abortion rights advocates.

Estrich said that missed the point. While abortion is legal, she said, clinics are too few and far between, and in recent months, have become places of confrontation and violence--because of the religious right.

“You shouldn’t have to be a hero,” she said, “to be a gynecologist.”