Religious Right Stepping Up to Political Pulpit

Ten years ago, they were widely dismissed as a political fringe group. Today, conservative Christians are a driving force in the local GOP, helping to set the party’s platform and raising millions of dollars to get their candidates elected.

Money linked to religious conservatives from Orange County bankrolled the successful campaigns of dozens of legislative candidates over the last five years, giving Republicans long-sought control of the Assembly.

In another victory just three months ago, legions of volunteer foot soldiers helped in getting out the vote to oust two Orange County school board members they considered too liberal and replace them with like-minded conservatives.

And, to further galvanize them into a voting bloc, more than a million voter guides compiled by Orange County’s Rev. Louis P. Sheldon are circulated each election nationwide as thinly disguised attempts to tell the faithful which candidates to support. A decade ago, only 25,000 of such guides were handed out.

“We are the largest grass-roots effort in America, and we’re growing every election cycle, particularly in Orange County,” said Sheldon, the founder of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, a conservative Christian lobbying group. “We vote according to the word of God . . . [and] the Republican Party tends to be more biblical in its views.”

Although they represent only about 20% of the local GOP, according to a recent Times Orange County Poll, religious conservatives have made their pro-Christian, antiabortion, anti-gay agendas a focus of the party’s platform. Well-financed, carefully organized and highly motivated, they are emerging as one of the most aggressive and able power brokers of the 1990s.

Aspiring Republican politicians line up to seek endorsements and campaign cash from conservative Christians. They vie for space on campaign mailers and voter guides. And they cozy up to religious leaders, hoping for a favorable mention during Sunday sermons before election day.

By most accounts, religious conservatives started scoring their greatest electoral success with local school boards several years ago. They are increasingly making their presence felt at city councils, at the state and federal levels, and within the local party structure.

“We’re always considered extremists, but we’re not. We’re intelligent people up on the issues,” said June Cerruto, a member of the Republican Central Committee. “People act like being a good Christian is a liability to our party, but it’s not. It’s an asset. We should keep government out of religion, not the other way around. Religion has a place in government.”

Despite religious conservatives’ clout, a growing number of party members warn that the social agenda of the religious right will ultimately weaken the GOP, locally and nationally.

According to a new Times Orange County Poll, religious conservatives are out-of-step with a majority of Republicans in the county, who favor abortion rights and oppose mandatory school prayer. Debates on gay rights and abortion only deepen the division, many Republicans complain.

“The whole attitude has changed within the county as far as political support and backing. It’s gotten more and more conservative,” said County Supervisor Marian Bergeson, who is against abortion but believes the issue should not be a litmus test for political candidates.

Bergeson said that if the Republican right wing, including religious conservatives, wants the party to prevail, “they are going to have to keep an image that’s acceptable to all Republicans.”

Members of the county’s business community also have expressed concern that the party’s increasing focus on social and moral issues jeopardizes other GOP concerns, such as reducing regulations on business and downsizing government.

Moderate and fiscally conservative Republicans know that without broader appeal, the party may appear extremist and alienate badly needed support. Successful Republican politicians also know that they need to toe the line by appealing to religious leaders one day and meeting business leaders the next.

Before the March primary, Republican candidates carefully sent out campaign mailers touting their antiabortion stances, as well as their “pro-business” positions.

Religious conservatives, however, care little for compromising their issues to broaden the party’s appeal to other elements. For them, the Bible is the basic guide for life and politics.

“This is a battle for the soul of America and the battleground is on moral issues,” Sheldon said, standing behind a desk in his office covered with books with titles such as “Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far,” “ACLU: The Devil’s Advocate” and “Who’s Afraid of the Religious Right.”

“The conservative Christians must march into the political arena,” he said.

And they have.

In the March primary, religious conservatives helped to unseat two of three incumbents on the Orange County Department of Education’s board and replace them with like-minded conservatives who advocate shrinking the education bureaucracy, increasing privatization and setting rigorous curriculum and graduation standards.

In 1994, the Education Alliance, a group that shares and endorses many of the same ideals as religious conservatives but is not directly associated with them, spent about $36,000 to support nearly three dozen candidates for Orange County school boards. Twelve of the group’s candidates were elected.

And members of the Education Alliance have been meeting for months planning their political strategies for November’s election.

Frank Ury, a spokesman with Education Alliance, said the group does not advocate prayer in schools but does appeal to people who want to give control of school curriculum and policy decisions to parents. He said the group draws significant support from religious conservatives because of its stance.

“The conservative vote has drastically come alive in the last eight years,” said Robert Simonds, founder of Costa Mesa-based Citizens for Excellence for Education, a religious political organization. “And it looks like this year could be the greatest [for winning seats] we’ve ever had.”

Simonds, a former math professor at Orange Coast College, launched a campaign in 1978 against “anti-biblical” curriculum in public schools. Since then, his organization has spread nationwide and receives membership dues from 350,000 parents.

The group is known for distributing a how-to-run-for-office handbook for religious conservative candidates campaigning for school board seats. His group advocates a ban on certain books, supports prayer in schools and opposes sex education that teaches anything other than abstinence.

He said his group has had inquiries from 40 potential Orange County candidates seeking its support in upcoming elections.

Simonds denies accusations that religious conservative candidates are told to run “stealth” campaigns, but he acknowledges that candidates are instructed not to “wear their religion or morality on their sleeves” if they want to get elected.

“In Orange County, we’ve tried to keep it very low-key,” he said, noting that moderate and liberal Republicans try to scare the public into believing “extremists” are trying to ruin public education.

“There is such a backlash. . . . There is a lot of hatred for Christians,” Simonds said. “They try to make you feel ashamed for your beliefs.”

Some critics said conservative Christians should be ashamed.

“They are wreaking havoc on public education,” said Jean Hessburg, California director for People for the American Way, a liberal political organization that attempts to expose what it says are “stealth” candidates fielded by Christian conservatives. “What the religious right has done is make it difficult to trust someone who says they are pro-family. We’re all pro-family.”

While Simonds prefers to remain low-key, Sheldon is anything but. He is one of the movement’s most visible spokesmen, pushing religious conservative agendas locally and nationally.

In Washington, he helped draft a “Religious Freedom Amendment” that would give students the right to pray in school and was instrumental in another bill that would let churches spend up to 20% of annual gross revenue on lobbying activities and to spend up to 5% on political campaigns.

Under existing federal law, campaigning is prohibited and lobbying cannot consume a “substantial part” of church activities, which is generally interpreted as not more than 5% of annual revenue. Both bills are not likely to go far during this presidential election year.

“To be spiritual means you sometimes have to be activists,” Sheldon told parishioners at a local church the Sunday before last March’s primary election. “We must take our salt into the political arena.”

After that sermon, he passed out voter guides that rated candidates according to their views on abortion, gays, pornography and gambling.

Sheldon’s group, like many others, circumvents federal laws prohibiting religious or other nonprofit organizations from endorsing candidates by sending questionnaires to candidates and then listing their responses as part of a voter “education” project.

But Republican successes, such as winning a majority in the 80-member state Assembly after years of Democratic domination, are founded on more than voter indoctrination. Money from Orange County is the lifeblood of the cause.

The most influential figures in the local and state GOP are Garden Grove businessman Rob Hurtt, now the Republican leader in the state Senate, and banking heir Howard F. Ahmanson Jr.

Individually and through political action committees they created, Hurtt and Ahmanson have used their fortunes to back candidates and legislation representing their Christian values.

Hurtt, owner of Container Supply Co., a tin can and plastic bucket manufacturing firm, has pumped more than $2.7 million of his own money into California political contributions--an unprecedented amount for one person in state races, according to campaign spending reports. .

“The person you meet with first is Rob Hurtt. . . . Not because Rob Hurtt’s ideology is different from Lou Sheldon’s but because he has the ability to give money,” said Hessburg, with People for the American Way.

Ahmanson, meanwhile, described as a “quiet, nervous” man who shuns publicity, remains a powerful behind-the-scenes player and has included conservative candidates in local school board and city council races to his list of beneficiaries.

Ruth Holton of California Common Cause described Hurtt and Ahmanson as “the single largest factor toward the Republican [takeover] in the Assembly.”

Even foes of religious conservatives admire their political successes.

“Our hats are off to them,” said David Cantor, senior researcher for the Anti-Defamation League, which has monitored the activities of the religious right movement. “They do what concerned citizens do. I don’t want to demonize them. They outwork and out-organize other elements in both parties. It’s their views that we find troubling. They have an intolerance that’s very alarming. They’re not friends of pluralism. It’s an angry force.”

It’s a force, he said, that has fertile grounds in Orange County’s Republican Party.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Religious Influence

Excerpts from literature distributed at election time in county churches:

Questions for candidates from the Traditional Values Coalition voter guide:

Would you vote to support to support legislation which prevents schools from promoting and advocating homosexuality in the classroom?

*

Would you vote to support legislation that would prevent the recognition of same-sex marriage in California by denying the “full faith and credit” portion of the U.S. Constitution?

Would you vote to oppose the expansion of card room and casino type gambling?

Would you vote to provide parents with educational choice through the use of public funds to send their child to public, charter, private or religious schools?

Would you vote to limit tax-funded Medi-Cal abortions to those necessary to save the life of the mother, or for children conceived by incest or rape?

Would you vote to allow community standards to replace statewide standards concerning pornography? Questions for candidates from Calvary Chapel Voter’s Guide:

School-Based Clinics:

There is a concerted effort to institute school-based “health” clinics whose underlying intent is to provide contraceptives and abortion referrals directly to students. Studies have shown that these clinics do not decrease the pregnancy rate--only the birth rate.

Will you oppose the establishment of any school-based “health” clinic, whether on or off school property, for students of any age?

*

Outside Speakers:

Speakers from pro-abortion organizations sometimes are given access to students.

Will you support equal access to the student body for pro-life speakers if speakers who promote abortion or contraceptive sex are permitted on campus?

Parental Consent:

Parents desire to have input into the moral and religious content of academic materials and tests.

Will you support parental consent when questionable materials are presented in the classroom?

Source: Voter guides printed by Traditional Values Coalition and Calvary Chapel

Researched by MATT LAIT / Los Angeles Times