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

DATE: MONDAY, July 18, 1994                   TAG: 9407180062
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FOREST                                LENGTH: Medium

`HOME LOBBYING KIT' MARKETED

A conservative Christian group that first drew national attention with a commercial linking President Clinton to gay rights during the 1992 campaign, has unveiled its newest product - a "home lobbying kit."

Christian Action Network President Martin J. Mawyer said distribution of the $36 kits is a $100,000 national campaign that will surpass the anti-Clinton television advertisement that put the fledgling conservative group in the media spotlight.

The Forest-based network has spent $60,000 producing the kits. It hired actress Susan Walden of the Disney Channel's "Thunder Bay" program to appear with Mawyer in infomercials selling the kit.

Included in the kit are: a 30-minute video titled "Congress Exposed," a home lobbyist companion book, a Washington insider newsletter, audio cassettes with two hours of political experts revealing the "secrets of the homosexual agenda and the National Organization of Women" and a government report card on how members of Congress voted on various social issues.

The kit will be sold beginning next month through infomercials aired in 25 cities.

"You will see more gay parade clips, general pro-abortion demonstrations and `black Jesus' demonstrations," Mawyer said of the infomercials. "It will show how powerful Washington lobbyists are dictating national policy and law."

A brief description of the campaign was enough to spark criticism from Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

"It sounds like yet another effort to have a religious right group raise money disseminating misinformation," said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United.

"Frankly, I think there are enough sources of this kind of misinformation already," Lynn said. "I can't imagine one more videocassette is going to do anything but further pollute the issues."

The network was founded in 1990 as a lobbying group to promote "pro-family issues and to advocate traditional American principles of religious liberty, public virtue and good government." Mawyer said the network has an active membership of 60,000.

Mawyer said he came up with the kit idea in April after seeing Ross Perot successfully encourage citizens to get involved in government.

by CNB