THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 9, 1994 TAG: 9412090628
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
Jesse L. Jackson refused to apologize Thursday for calling the conservative Christian Coalition a ``strong force'' in Nazi Germany and a racist influence in the slave-holding South.
The civil rights leader expanded on remarks he made last week in Chicago and New York, saying that ``there is an ideological and historical connection'' linking the Christian Coalition today to the white supremacists and anti-Semites of yesteryear.
Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, which is based in Chesapeake, said Jackson should apologize to the Coalition and to ``the one out of every three voters who said in exit polls on Election Day that they were conservative Christians.'' Reed also called on President Clinton to condemn Jackson just as Clinton distanced himself from the remarks of rap artist Sister Souljah in 1992.
A White House official said the administration had no immediate response to Reed's request that it denounce Jackson.
In his interview with the editorial board of the Chicago Sun-Times last week, Jackson noted the escalating hostility in political discourse, then slammed the Christian Coalition for ``a kind of manipulative use of Christianity, its name without its substance, without its mercy, without its inclusion.''
But then Jackson proceeded to condemn the group directly, saying, ``The Christian Coalition was a strong force in Germany. It laid down a suitable, scientific, theological rationale for the tragedy in Germany. The Christian Coalition was very much in evidence there.'' He also said that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the slain civil rights leader, went to Birmingham, Ala., during the 1960s ``to fight the Christian Coalition.''
The Christian Coalition was founded in 1989 by the Rev. Pat Robertson. Its more than 1.3 million members distributed about 30 million voter guides during last month's midterm elections and took much of the credit for the conservative Republican victory.
Jackson said he is aware that the Christian Coalition did not exist during slavery or World War II, but that ``they are in the same lineage. . . . They were not counterculture to slavery. . . . Those white churches were not sanctuaries for us.'' by CNB