Battle Over Airport Takes a Religious Turn

For years, the anti-airport focus has been on safety and smog and traffic. Now, as Measure F nears a vote, religious leaders from across Orange County are turning the El Toro Airport debate into a tale about the potential destruction of the region’s spiritual fabric.

Lobbying politicians and using cable television programs, an 81-member interdenominational group has launched a campaign against a commercial airport at El Toro by draping a controversial layer of old-fashioned religious discourse atop what has been a secular debate.

For evidence, the group’s leaders cite the Bible and say approving the airport simply would not be “the loving thing to do.” Pastor John Steward of the Mount of Olives Lutheran Church in Mission Viejo invokes a version of the Golden Rule in his cable shows, asking viewers to love their neighbors.

“I think it’s a biblical question: What is the quality of life here?” said Steward, the head of Clergy for Wholesome Communities, which was created solely to combat the airport. “It will devastate lives,” he said. If an airport is built, “it’s not loving our neighbors as we are loving ourselves.”

The group’s first foray into the public arena last week was rocky. Appearing before the Orange County Board of Supervisors, leaders were challenged by some who denounced their stance as hypocritical. For instance, Inglewood residents at the meeting who live in the flight path of Los Angeles International Airport said it is not fair that Orange County residents don’t want an airport here but are happy to use LAX.

The emergence of Clergy for Wholesome Communities is noteworthy because many of its members are from North County, an area that traditionally has favored an airport at the former Marine Corps Air Station and has been pitted against South County airport opponents.

It’s unclear what impact, if any, the group will have on the results of the March 7 election, when voters decide the fate of Measure F, which seeks to require two-thirds voter approval for airport projects, large jails and hazardous waste landfills built near homes. If passed, it would halt El Toro airport planning. But a poll commissioned by The Times’ Orange County edition found that a growing number of North County residents oppose the airport.

Steward said it is time to set aside the divisive “north vs. south” debate and replace it with the strength of pure-and-simple religious leadership.

Many supporters say the group adds a welcome dimension to the issue by injecting the power of religion into what they see as a predominantly moral issue of civil rights.

But others say the group’s religious approach--intentionally or not--diminishes the credibility of spiritual leaders and creates more division by implying that airport supporters are unholy.

“Of course it has moral dimensions,” Benjamin J. Hubbard, professor and chair of the department of comparative religion at Cal State Fullerton, said of the airport debate. “But you [shouldn’t] cheapen and trivialize religion by . . . invoking the Bible in a public policy issue.”

Rabbi Bernie King of Congregation Shir Ha-Ma’alot in Irvine said he thinks the group is further polarizing the community. “I would prefer to see clergy playing a mediator role. . . . The issue for the most part is clearly a political issue. We should reserve our voices for very important human rights issues.”

Even within the ranks of the group are some who say they aren’t entirely pleased with the tactics.

“I don’t think you can call people unloving or suggest that they are somehow ungodly if they disagree with my position on this,” said the Rev. Fred Plumer of the Irvine United Church of Christ, a member of Clergy for Wholesome Communities.

Steward and his many supporters defend the group’s efforts.

He suggests solutions such as a bullet train to the airport in Ontario, or copying Hong Kong by building an airport in the ocean. He says he hopes the cable programs will add some logic to the debate, something he says has been missing from the discussion for too long. Steward says the group has an obligation to remind people of biblical mandates for civil behavior.

The group uses public-access cable television to air stories on what it says are the “true effects” of a

potential airport. Steward’s program includes video of window-rattling jets taped during an airport flight demonstration and interviews with residents who would live under proposed jet paths. The programming airs at various times on cable access channels, depending on the cable company and region.

Steward and other leaders say noise and pollution would hamper a healthy spiritual life for Orange County residents. “There’s a reason monks go to quiet places to meditate,” Plumer said. “This is about quality of life, and that affects the spirituality of a community.”

Another member of the group, Rabbi Alan Krause of Temple Beth El in Aliso Viejo, said the issue is not just one of public policy, and that it has special resonance with him, because he grew up under the LAX flight path.

“The clergy has an obligation to speak out on moral and ethical issues,” Krause said. “I think you could find a more loving place to put the airport facility.”

It’s not surprising that leaders of the pro- and anti-Measure F camps have differing views on the group.

Bruce Nestande, chairman of Costa Mesa’s Citizens for Jobs and the Economy, a group formed in 1994 to push an El Toro airport, called the clergy’s involvement absurd.

“I’m a Christian and I have pastors in my family; to imply that anybody who is for the airport is ungodly is an absurdity. There is zero linkage between the Bible and what they are trying to accomplish. They ought to be worried about the salvation of their parishioners.”

But members of the group and Measure F supporters say, indeed, that they are.

Heartened by the religious backing, Measure F supporters said they hope the clergy group helps voters understand the airport issue is primarily about morality and living in a civil society, and that peaceful daily life is essential to peaceful spiritual life.

“El Toro is a moral issue in which some people are doing unto others what they don’t want done to themselves,” said Len Kranser, spokesman for Citizens for Safe and Healthy Communities. “And it is absolutely appropriate for the clergy to be involved in that.”

Times staff writer Elaine Gale contributed to this report.