THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 29, 1996 TAG: 9608290417
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WARREN FISKE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: 99 lines
They are two deeply religious men who say they were born again to spread the word of God. But the Lord, it seems, has put them at cross purposes.
There's Ralph Reed of Chesapeake, the executive director of the Christian Coalition and Republican national delegate who argues that curbing abortions is the single most important issue facing the nation.
``1996 is not about the economy, stupid,'' Reed said at a rally of his group this week near the site of the Democratic National Convention to protest the party's pro-abortion rights platform. ``America's greatness is not measured simply by its gross national product, the Dow industrial average and the unemployment rate. It is about how we treat the least among us, the most vulnerable of our citizens,'' he said, referring to the unborn.
And there's the Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy of Washington, D.C., a black Baptist minister, longtime civil rights leader and Democratic national delegate who says Reed and other conservative Christians have got it all wrong.
``The purpose of religion is to provide good news for the poor,'' he preached at a rally this week held by the inter-denominational Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Fauntroy predicted that Republican proposals to cut social programs will hurt poor children. ``I am offended by those who protect the fetus and assault the child.''
With the emergence of the Christian Coalition as a dominant force in the Republican Party, there has been a growing tendency to lump all evangelicals together as the anti-abortion, right-wing property of the GOP. But black evangelicals have long been a strong and liberal force in the Democratic Party.
As the dispute between Reed and Fauntroy suggests, their visions of religion and public policy vary greatly. Those disagreements have played a key role this month in defining the wide philosophical differences the two parties have laid out at their national conventions.
Citing the commandment ``Thou shalt not kill,'' Christian conservatives withstood a challenge at the Republican convention to weaken the GOP's unequivocally anti-abortion platform.
Seeking to reach out to the rest of the party, Reed and other evangelical leaders embraced the GOP's economic plan of deep tax and spending cuts, arguing that the savings would strengthen families.
Unlike many of their mostly white Republican brethren, black evangelicals at the Democratic convention said economic issues are a far greater concern than abortion. Fauntroy and others accused their counterparts of turning their backs on charity by backing tax cuts that largely will benefit the upper and middle classes and spending reductions that will hurt the poor. They specifically cite GOP proposals to overhaul welfare and Medicaid.
When it comes to abortion, Fauntroy says he believes God does not take sides. He and other Democratic ministers cite Old Testament verses in which God says He is not the arbiter of all moral decisions.
Fauntroy said he objects to the Christian Coalition's heavy emphasis on abortion. ``They are using religion to divert attention from public policies that are bad news to the poor,'' he said.
A similar dispute is taking place among Catholics. For almost a century, Catholics overwhelmingly voted Democratic, attracted to the party's pro-immigration, pro-labor stands. That slowly began to change in the 1970s as debate over abortion and other social policies intensified. In the 1994 congressional elections, polls showed for the first time that a majority of the nation's Catholics voted Republican.
This year, the 300-member National Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a letter to the Democratic Party urging it to adopt an anti-abortion platform.
``We urge members of the Democratic Party to work to change the party's position on the sacredness of human life,'' the bishops wrote in a full-page advertisement that ran in The Chicago Tribune this week. ``. . . There are millions of pro-life Democrats who are leaving the party over this moral issue, and the trend is not likely to end soon. For the Democratic Party to alienate those who value human life would be contrary to its proudest traditions.''
An assortment of pro-abortion-rights Catholic groups have called news conferences and staged demonstrations this week to protest the bishops' letter.
Frances Kissling, director of the Catholics for a Free Choice in Washington, said the letter was inappropriate because polls show great ambivalence about abortion among Catholics, with almost 40 percent saying it should be available on demand, another 40 percent supporting it with restrictions and 20 percent calling for it to be completely outlawed.
Kissling also cited a 1995 poll by the Pew Foundation in which Catholics listed abortion as the ninth most important concern on a list of 11 issues. Topping the list were crime, jobs, taxes and education. The only two matters deemed less important than abortion were foreign trade and campaign finance reform.
Kissling said she is concerned that the letter would be viewed as a tacit Catholic endorsement of the Republican Party.
``We're concerned about the prevailing view that the Catholic vote hinges on abortion and the 300 Catholic bishops in the United States can control the votes of 60 million Catholics like some kind of ward boss,'' she said.
``We call on the bishops to look at the broad base of social issues Catholics care about and not just focus on abortion.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
VICKI CRONIS/The Virginia-Pilot
Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy: ``The purpose of religion is to provide
good news for the poor.''
KEYWORDS: DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION 1996
CHICAGO ISSUES by CNB