L.A. ELECTIONS / 3RD SCHOOL BOARD DISTRICT : 2 Conservatives Target Horton on AIDS, Gay Issues

A microcosm of battles being fought in school districts across the nation is unfolding in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where debate over AIDS and homosexuality is dominating a school board race in what could be a test case for conservative Christian forays into the generally liberal district.

The target is 3rd District incumbent Jeff Horton, an outspoken advocate of AIDS education and support services for gay and lesbian teen-agers. Horton is running as the board’s first openly gay candidate in Tuesday’s primary election, and believes that he is the victim of politically expedient bigotry.

His challengers, nurse Linda Jones and contractor Peter Ford, say they are neither homophobes nor religious extremists, just parents, Christians, Republicans and realists. Both say they disapprove of schools catering to homosexuals and believe that AIDS education should focus on abstinence.

“I’m a creature of Hollywood . . . the peers of my background are gay,” said Ford, the son of actor Glenn Ford and dancer Eleanor Powell. “I really don’t care that (Horton’s) gay and that he’s got a lover. I just object to that being brought into the schools.”

While Horton expresses dismay that the race for the seat--which stretches from Mid-Wilshire to North Hollywood--cannot involve a loftier debate of educational issues, his campaign literature has attempted to capitalize on the situation in the heavily Democratic district.

“The radical right is trying to take over the L.A. school board,” a mailer proclaims in block letters, next to photos of Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson and the Rev. Lou Sheldon, founder of the Traditional Values Coalition.

As is often true in political campaigns, the truth is somewhat obscured by the warring rhetoric.

Ford and Jones deny that they were handpicked by the conservative Christian bloc. Yet their campaigns have caught the eye of the religious right, and both say they welcome its support.

The Traditional Values and Christian coalitions cannot formally endorse or contribute to candidates because both are tax-exempt organizations. They have, however, provided indirect assistance: Sheldon interviewed Ford on a religious radio station, and the Christian Coalition featured both candidates--along with Horton, who declined to answer their questions--in more than 200,000 copies of a voter guide being distributed in local churches.

Both candidates say they are far from radical, but share some basic beliefs with the religious right. They favor school prayer (both prefer a moment of silence), the teaching of creationism (along with theories of evolution) and government vouchers for education, generally viewed as a boon for parochial schools.

Horton, of Silver Lake, opposes all three. A high school teacher for 15 years until he left the classroom in 1990 to work for his predecessor on the board, Horton is an unapologetic liberal.

What he and his supporters fear is that by tapping into anti-gay sentiments, his opponents could touch off an electoral landslide similar to those that have swept dozens of other Christian conservatives onto school boards across the country in the past five years.

Voters, frustrated by declining test scores and escalating school violence, have proved eager to vote for candidates who promise morality and a return to basics. Because turnout in school board elections is low--typically fewer than a quarter of registered voters--a small number of strong-minded voters can affect the race.

“We travel a lot to different states and in every one we hear something about the religious right in school board races,” said Matthew Freeman, research director of People for the American Way, a self-appointed watchdog of conservative Christians. “They’re able to campaign against what they say is happening now and what people remember from when they were in school.”

School board races are attractive to the religious right for two reasons, Freeman said: Conservative Christians have deep-seated concerns about what is being taught in public schools. And they view school boards as ideal springboards for higher office.

Ford and Jones said they decided to run out of frustration with a school system that they felt did not respond to their concerns or reflect their values. They hope to prevent the incumbent from gaining more than half the vote next Tuesday and force a June runoff.

Jones, of North Hollywood, was raised in a politically active South-Central Los Angeles family. A former Democrat, she dived into school politics in the parent movement against 1992 redistricting, which fragmented the San Fernando Valley among four board seats.

Her two daughters attend Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, a highly regarded Los Angeles Unified magnet school. For Jones, the breaking point was learning that her daughters had to ride the school bus every day squeezed three to a seat.

“Everybody says they’re frustrated, but when you have kids, it’s personal,” she said.

Ford, who lives in a Craftsman-style house that he built two years ago in the West Hollywood hills, is a political neophyte motivated by his experiences sending three children to public schools.

“They would bring home tales of woe every day,” Ford said. “First Aubrey (18) came home with tales of no toilet paper in the bathroom (at Fairfax High). I thought, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ Then he came home with a tale of three classes sharing math books. I thought, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ Then he came home with a tale of how a drug deal went down in his auto shop and $300 exchanged hands. . . . I thought, ‘It’s time to do something about this.’ ”

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The two candidates differ from Horton in almost every way: They support breaking up the mammoth district; he opposes it. He has championed the LEARN school reform movement; they both consider it an expensive experiment that is failing. They strongly supported Proposition 187, the anti-illegal immigration initiative; Horton was an adamant foe of the measure and donned a black armband after it passed.

Both opponents say they also sensed a political vulnerability: Horton did not publicly announce his homosexuality until six months after his 1991 election--he did so on National Coming Out Day--and days later took the lead in a successful board campaign to make free condoms available to high school students.

Since then, Horton has promoted gay issues, including establishment of Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, a district commission to represent the concerns of homosexual students, and the EAGLES Center, an alternative high school program for about 50 gay, lesbian and bisexual school dropouts.

“When he ran, he ran pretty much on those issues that concern all of us: academics, school safety and such . . . and his sexual orientation wasn’t an issue,” Ford said. “And all of a sudden, he decided to become a one-issue member.”

Horton responds that during his tenure on the board he has diligently worked on other issues, such as school reform and budget balancing, but saw a leadership vacuum when it came to gay teen-agers and AIDS education.

“I knew they were things I needed to take the leadership on . . . because if I didn’t, who would?” Horton said.

Those who oversee the programs for homosexual students point out that the cost to the district is minimal--about $270,000 total, much of that offset by state student-attendance dollars that would be lost if the teen-agers dropped out. They say that having a gay board member is as essential as having ethnic minority representation.

“Whenever issues are brought up, (Horton) includes the perspective of our gay and lesbian children, which is harder for a straight person to do,” said Kathy Gill, director of the district’s Gay and Lesbian Education Commission.

However, a small but vocal opposition has consistently contended that the programs constitute lavish attention for a tiny minority of students and are at best segregation, at worst recruitment of confused teen-agers into homosexuality.

“The district spends an inordinate amount of time making sure that schools are sufficiently integrated and then you have an EAGLES Center . . . for homosexual youth,” said Eadie Gieb, president of Parents and Students United of the San Fernando Valley, which has staged protests against condom availability and explicit descriptions of sex acts in AIDS education.

The school board’s most conservative member, Barbara Boudreaux, shares those concerns and adds that Horton “has gotten so far out on his agenda that he has missed the total agenda.”

But spreading that message to voters requires money--and money is another area in which the three candidates differ:

* Ford is a man of some means, as the Picasso and the Chagall on his dining room wall bear witness. He says he is willing to put $200,000 of his own money into the race, but by last week reported raising just over $33,000, a large chunk of it a personal loan.

* By contrast, Jones’ living room wall is covered with precinct maps, evidence of the low-budget, $18,000 campaign that she is running out of her apartment.

* Horton figures that it will cost him at least $125,000 to win the race, and at last count he had two-thirds of that. Four years ago, he ran with the wholehearted support of the teachers union, but lost that backing after he joined the school board vote to cut teacher pay to close a budget hole in 1992.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

3rd District Race The redawn 3rd District of the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education climbs over the hill from Hollywood and West Hollywood and dips into the San Fernando Valley. The race has drawn two challengers, who are emphasizing moral issues, running against incumbent Jeff Horton. *

Candidates *

Demographic Information There are 214,000 registered voters in the district, 62% Democratic and 29% Republican. The ethnic breakdown of students in the district is 66% Latino, 18% White, 8% Asian American and 7% African American.