
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 13, 1990                   TAG: 9007130484
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CODY LOWE RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HELMS GIVEN ENDORSEMENT BY FALWELL

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, who vowed to eschew politics after disbanding the Moral Majority last year, has lent his name to the U.S. Senate re-election campaign of North Carolina's Jesse Helms.

A mailing from the Helms for Senate committee this week included a two-page letter with Falwell's signature.

In it, Falwell decries the activities of the National Endowment for the Arts, a gay and lesbian political action committee called the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the National Organization for Women, the Abortion Rights Action League and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The letter goes on to say that Republican Helms needs to raise $45,000 in the next 14 days to publicly counter the attacks of "liberals' distortions of his record."

Helms spent $16 million is his last campaign against former Gov. Jim Hunt, who spent $15 million. This year Helms is being challenged by Democrat Harvey Gantt, a former mayor of Charlotte and the first black candidate for the Senate in that state since Reconstruction.

Falwell spokesman Mark DeMoss said Thursday that the mailing was "an isolated incident . . . for a very special friend" and not a signal that Falwell was going to return to political activity.

DeMoss said Falwell and the Moral Majority were "probably more involved in North Carolina than in any other state" in 1984, holding voter registration drives and other political activities.

Falwell's Old Time Gospel Hour has never made a contribution to a political campaign, DeMoss said, and will not contribute to the Helms campaign. He said he "could not speak to whether" Falwell would make a personal contribution.

The mailing includes a postage-paid return envelope to a Helms for Senate mailing address in Raleigh, N.C., but the return form to accompany donations includes a salutation to Falwell. It includes the message, "I agree! We must not let the liberals, like the ACLU and NOW, defeat Senator Helms."

by CNB