THE LEDGER-STAR
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 3, 1994 TAG: 9411030617
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOHN KING, ASSOCIATED PRESS
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
Throughout Indianapolis this Sunday, churchgoers will be told that Rep. Andy Jacobs supports gay marriages and favors promoting homosexuality to schoolchildren. He swears it isn't so.
The information is contained in voter guides to be distributed by the Christian Coalition in churches across the country this weekend, as the organization tries to educate and motivate religious conservative voters for Tuesday's midterm elections.
A sampling of guides shows that in the overwhelming majority of cases, it is the Republican candidate whose views are most in line with those espoused by the coalition, the offspring of religious broadcaster Pat Robertson's 1988 presidential campaign.
But coalition leaders deny picking sides - which would violate the organization's tax-exempt status. They say records are carefully researched and presented in the guides - and the choices left to voters.
``We know the rules and we play by them,'' said coalition spokesman Mike Russell.
Already, many Democrats who have been shown advance copies of the guides have complained of distortions.
In Oklahoma, for example, Democratic House candidate Stuart Price says the guide is full of ``mistruths'' about his views on abortion, school prayer and homosexuality, and he has urged Tulsa churches not to distribute it.
The Democratic candidates for governor and lieutenant governor in South Carolina, one of the Christian Coalition's strongest states, have complained that their views on abortion are distorted. Candidates for school board in New Hampshire and elsewhere have lodged similar complaints.
``It is something we expect,'' said Russell. ``What we routinely see is candidates who refuse to answer our survey start complaining that we are putting their record out there for people to judge.''
That expectation is also a major reason the guides are not distributed until the weekend before the election.
``You want to hold it until that last Sunday because if (candidates) start raising doubts about the voter guide, you're going to have a real skittish pastor that is just going to pull them,'' Christian Coalition voter education director Chuck Cunningham told a September coalition strategy session with state affiliates.
At the session, coalition officials repeatedly warned state leaders not to endorse candidates. But Cunningham said, ``We can make history by putting the brakes on Clinton-style liberalism.''
Leaders of the Interfaith Alliance, an organization founded to monitor the so-called religious right, accuse the Christian Coalition of twisting candidates' records and said the late release of the guides proves the organization's bias by not giving candidates time to respond.
But even the coalition's fiercest critics give it begrudging respect.
``They have a lot of very good lawyers,'' said Arthur Kropp, president of the liberal People for the American Way. ``While they don't come right out and endorse, it is very clear at least from the perspective of the Christian Coalition who you should vote for.''
Take the case of Jacobs.
The Christian Coalition voting guide says the 14-term Indiana Democrat opposes a balanced budget amendment and favors promoting homosexuality to schoolchildren. And it says his Republican opponent has opposite views.
But back in 1976, Jacobs proposed prohibiting the government from borrowing to pay its bills and has been a leader of the balanced budget drive ever since. ``I started the movement,'' he said.
And he says the Christian Coalition is twisting a vote to cast him as being in favor of promoting homosexuality to schoolchildren. Jacobs said that when a congressman tried to deny use of tax dollars to school districts that teach homosexuality is a positive lifestyle, he supported an amendment that narrowed the restriction to federal funding of such programs and made it clear that Congress was in no way trying to set local curriculum.
The Christian Coalition's Russell defended the guide, saying that whatever Jacobs' reasoning, the guide accurately depicts the results of his votes.
In this debate over nuance, the Christian Coalition can hardly be singled out. Lawmakers in both parties cast votes for giant measures only to go into the next campaign and be criticized for one provision in a bill - in many cases even when they are on record elsewhere opposing it.
Even fierce coalition critic Kropp concedes this point.
``That is the way the game is played nowadays, and it is dirty,'' Kropp said. ``But it is a sickness in the system easily found on both sides.''
KEYWORDS: CHRISTIAN COALITION U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATE by CNB