
DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 1997            TAG: 9708270575

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LEDYARD KING, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:  114 lines

COALITION'S AGENDA INCLUDES TAX CUTS, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

The announcement marked the debut of new leader Donald P. Hodel onto the political stage.

Christian Coalition President Donald P. Hodel looked uncomfortable as he scaled the National Press Club podium Tuesday, his eyes squinting under the biting glare of a dozen television cameras.

For the next hour, he outlined the coalition's legislative priorities for Congress, answered reporters' questions with passion but not flair, and often seemed dwarfed by the man sitting on the other side of the lectern: former Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes, a politician who's never been accused of cornering the market on charisma.

As Hodel wrapped up his first official appearance heading the nation's largest Christian organization, it was clear: This was no Ralph Reed.

Charming, savvy and telegenic, Reed lapped up the media attention. Hodel, a former Interior and Energy secretary under Ronald Reagan, seemed to endure it.

But Hodel's first package of legislative priorities does continue Reed's legacy in broadening the tent of public support for the coalition, according to some political scientists.

Over the past two years, the coalition under Reed has tried to shed its image of exclusion by reaching out to Catholics, whose brethren face persecution in China, and to blacks, whose churches burned in a rash of arsons.

Observers said the success of the coalition's efforts is debatable. But they said Hodel's agenda seems aimed at reaching beyond the Christian audience, particularly the coalition's top priority: the creation of a White House office to punish countries that sponsor or allow persecution of any religious groups.

Hodel said some of those countries practicing persecution include China, Iran, Iraq, The Sudan, Indonesia and some of the former Soviet republics.

To make his point, Hodel could have used an example of Christian suffering. Instead, he chose Jews, mentioning the Holocaust as an example of the kind of torture and oppression inflicted in some of those countries now.

``Go back and read what the Nazis were saying in the 1930s and listen to the people (today),'' he said. ``You'll find the parallels are really appalling.''

But in unveiling his first package of legislative priorities, Hodel has struck a definite contrast to Reed, whose magnetism and personal partisanship seemed to overshadow the coalition, said American University political scientist Mark Rozell.

Where Reed steered the coalition into the political mainstream by aligning with top Republicans like House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Hodel's priorities imply a return to faith-based issues.

Although the coalition claimed victory for the $500-per-child tax credit in the recent budget deal Clinton and the Republican congress hammered out, Hodel said he was disappointed more tax relief could not have been provided.

Forbes, appearing as part of a forum sponsored by the conservative weekly Human Events, was even harsher in his criticism of the ``monstrosity'' of a budget deal and for Gingrich's support of it: ``Photo ops in the Rose Garden is no substitute for the principles that make this country great.''

The five priorities Hodel outlined include a call for congressional help to end religious persecution across the globe, more tax relief for families and the ability to establish IRA-like accounts so parents can sock money away for private or home schooling.

Those issues, political scientist John Green said, are much truer to the principles of the 1.9-million-member coalition than some of the ones Reed championed.

``This doesn't look like a page out of Newt Gingrich's playbook,'' said Green, director of the Bliss Institute at the University of Akron. ``This looks like a pragmatic approach to the values that Christian conservatives really care about.''

But William Schneider, a political analyst for CNN and the American Enterprise Institute, said this agenda simply continues the Reed legacy of embracing issues that are universal enough to engender wide support: tax relief, school prayer, religious freedom.

Absent, Schneider said, are the priorities evangelical Christians hold dear but that coalition leaders fear might endanger the coalition's influence on Capitol Hill because they infringe on personal lifestyles. Abortion and gay rights are two of the most prominent ones, he said.

``Nonthreatening,'' Schneider said. ``That's what this agenda purports to be and that's what it is.''

One thing has not changed with Hodel's ascension: the power of the coalition to command attention. Forbes' presence at the forum was proof of that.

Rozell called it ``a clear indication of the importance that conservatives attach to the coalition in the presidential nominating process.''

Forbes, champion of the flat-tax proposal, is expected to be a presidential candidate in 2000. He said Tuesday he won't make an official decision until after the 1998 congressional elections. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

Christian Coalition's Goals

For complete copy, see microfilm

Graphic

EXCERPTS

Tuesday in Washington, Christian Coalition President Donald P.

Hodel released a statement on the need to spotlight - and punish -

foreign governments that sponsor or allow religious persecution and

to protect those who are victimized. Here are excerpts from Hodel's

prepared statement:

``More than 160,000 Christians were martyred in 1996 in a

monumental escalation of religious persecution worldwide while the

U.S. has stood by or looked the other way. It is time for the