ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9608010074
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Above
THE LAWSUIT SAYS the Christian Coalition voter guides endorsed candidates; the Rev. Jerry Falwell says the suit is a scare tactic.
A Federal Election Commission lawsuit against the Christian Coalition is a "purely political" strategy designed to "scare pastors and churches across the country into crawling back into their caves and not voting this fall against" Bill Clinton, the Rev. Jerry Falwell said Wednesday.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, alleges that the Chesapeake-based Christian Coalition illegally endorsed specific Republican candidates for president and Congress in 1990, 1992 and 1994.
The coalition insists it is a nonpartisan voter-education organization. It says its activities are limited to advocacy of political issues, not candidates, and do not violate federal campaign laws.
The coalition distributes millions of "voter guides" before local, state and national elections listing candidates' votes or positions on various issues. The FEC argues that the guides - along with conferences, telemarketing and direct-mail campaigns - sometimes illegally encouraged voters to cast ballots for particular candidates.
"I don't think the Christian Coalition has violated" the law, Falwell said. "I think you have the right to analyze the voting records of candidates. Liberal politicians don't want their records made public."
Falwell contends that "Hillary and Bill just decided, `We better - with Whitewater and all else that's going on - we better slam Pat Robertson real quickly here and maybe we'll scare some of these pastors out there who think what they're doing is illegal.'''
Although he believes the suit is frivolous, Falwell said he agrees with the law prohibiting organizations such as the Christian Coalition, as well as churches, from endorsing candidates.
"I would object to a church and a pastor spending its resources supporting or opposing any candidate. That's not why people put their offering into the offering plate. And it's taking undue advantage, also, of the congregation by the ecclesiastical leadership.
"That's why I object to the liberal churches, and particularly to black churches, being exploited by politicians" who make direct appeals to voters from the pulpit, Falwell said.
"That is not fair for anybody to do, and spiritually I think it's a violation of the pastor's commitment to his first calling."
Falwell is pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church and chancellor of Liberty University. His Moral Majority organization - active through most of the 1980s - was a forerunner of the Christian Coalition.
"You're interviewing me [as a private citizen] right now - not the pastor or the chancellor," Falwell said. "But if you were at Thomas Road Baptist Church on Sunday morning, you will never hear the words I'm saying to you right now, and our people who come to church know it.
"If the FEC really wanted to be taken seriously, they'd be on the backs of the labor unions, who openly, in the media, announced how many dollars they are going to spend to unseat all of these 70 freshman Republicans this year." The unions are subject to the same campaign laws as the Christian Coalition, Falwell said, but "they make no bones about" their campaign activity.
"It's like Jesse Jackson every four years raising money in black churches to support candidates. Jerry Falwell would go to jail for that. It's illegal. But the FEC's not going to say anything to labor unions or to Jesse Jackson. They're just going to beat up on conservatives, and that's why they have zero credibility."
Martin Mawyer, president of the Bedford County-based Christian Action Network, agreed. "I think that filing the [Christian Coalition] suit only days before the Republican Convention is simply an attempt to show extreme zeal in trying to censor Christian groups."
The action "borders on Nazi Gestapo tactics," he said.
Mawyer's Christian Action Network successfully defended itself against similar charges by the Federal Election Commission last July.
In the case against Mawyer's agency, the FEC alleged that a TV commercial produced and sponsored by the Christian Action Network amounted to an illegal attempt to persuade viewers to vote against Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
The commercial did not contain any explicit language to that effect, but the FEC contended that its use of images, music and colors added up to illegal "express advocacy" of a vote. The commercial showed gay men embracing and asked whether viewers considered the images their view of a better America.
U.S. District Judge James Turk dismissed the suit before it got to trial. The FEC appealed that ruling to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, where a decision is pending.
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff. The Rev. Jerry Falwell says theby CNBsuit is to "scare churches ... into crawling back into their caves
and not voting this fall." color. KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESS