Groups Aim to Reverse Gains of Religious Right

It is the dawn of a presidential election year, and a long-dormant political force is raising its voice again, struggling to be heard.

It emanates from the barrio and Beverly Hills. From South-Central Los Angeles and North Hollywood. It comes in the form of Protestants and Jews; Muslims, Unitarians and Catholics; Asian and Pacific Islanders, Latinos and African Americans.

It is the voice of self-described “progressive,” “liberal” and “mainstream” religious leaders, who share the frustration of feeling disenfranchised by the rhetoric of the religious right.

What they consider a new era of religious dialogue begins this Tuesday, with an all-day conference called “Spotlight on the Right/Building a Progressive Response,” to be held at Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles.

“This is for people of faith who don’t agree with the religious right,” said Paula Pilecki, one of the conference organizers.

The voice of socially moderate religious leaders dominated American politics for years, becoming a prominent force during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

But in recent years, the unexpected swiftness with which the religious right coordinated, promoted and implemented its conservative political agenda swept stunned religious liberals to the sidelines, scattered and disheartened.

In Los Angeles, the failure of their campaign to defeat Proposition 187--the anti-illegal immigration initiative--galvanized religious leaders and prompted the current organizing effort.

“The passage of 187 was a hard-learned lesson in the ability of the right to drive a wedge between people who should be allies,” said Julie Schollenberger, president of the Institute for the Study of the Religious Right, who coordinated Tuesday’s conference along with Gary Phillips, director of the MultiCultural Collaborative.

“Now, with the effort to put the so-called California Civil Rights Initiative on the ’96 ballot, we see the right once again trying to divide the very people who should be working together to defeat this anti-affirmative action legislation, the people whose lives would be most negatively affected by it, namely people of color and white women,” Schollenberger said.

Many groups in Los Angeles have independently launched efforts to counter the religious right on issues from gun control to school prayer to abortion. Cross-denominational gatherings to mobilize the liberal response are being held across the country.

Conference organizers said they hope to spawn a coordinated local campaign that crosses racial, religious and gender lines.

The organizing committee includes representatives of a broad spectrum of religious, ethnic and socioeconomic groups. They expect to attract as many as 300 people to the daylong gathering, which will focus on the tactics of the conservative forces and how to build a coalition of religious leaders to speak out against those positions.

A keynote speaker Tuesday will be the Rev. Mel White, an author and former ghostwriter for such conservative luminaries as Pat Robertson, Oliver North and Jerry Falwell, and now a minister in Dallas with the nation’s largest gay and lesbian congregation.

“The most important thing I want to get across at the conference is the sincerity of the religious right,” White said. “That’s where their extremism comes from, a sincere theological point of view. . . . It’s a mistake to demonize them.”

Building a coalition to oppose them will require “an equally deep level of sincerity and commitment to the principles of Jesus, [Mahatma] Gandhi and [the Rev. Martin Luther] King,” White said.

“In other words, we must love relentlessly. Sure, the right has an incredible communications apparatus, but no mass-mailing can compete with people coming out of the closet for justice.”

The conference will focus not just on informing and inspiring the area’s religious leaders, but developing a plan to sustain the liberal coalition during the coming election campaign.

“It’s imperative that the left progress from the defensive to the offensive posture,” said Phillips. “The fragmented or isolated left-of-center communities in Southern California have the potential to form a powerful multicultural coalition and become a driving force for change, but only if we take concerted action.”