DATE: Wednesday, October 8, 1997            TAG: 9710080008

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial

                                            LENGTH:   61 lines

POLITICS CROSSING THE LINE

Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition appears to be thumbing its nose at the federal agencies investigating it for alleged partisan political activity, offenses that, if proved, could cost the organization its tax-exempt status.

How else to explain recent revelations of blatant politicking at Christian Coalition events?

First was a clandestinely taped recording of Robertson himself extolling the virtues of Republicans and condemning Democrats at an Atlanta gathering of the Christian Coalition in September.

``I don't think at this time and juncture the Democrats are going to be able to take the White House unless we throw it away. We need to come together on somebody who reflects our values and has the stature to be president,'' Robertson said.

A few weeks later, at a Christian Coalition training session in Fairfax, Republican Del. Jay Katzen was reported to have praised Republican gubernatorial candidate James S. Gilmore III while denouncing Democrat Donald S. Beyer Jr. as a ``dangerous opponent.''

Many judge the latter incident to be more egregious than the former.

``Jay Katzen's remarks should put to rest the argument about whether the Christian Coalition is really an arm of the Republican Party. This is so explicit, it's incredible,'' Mark J. Rozell, a respected American University political scientist, told The Washington Post.

In the past, the Christian Coalition has carefully tiptoed close to the partisan line but has always stopped short of outright endorsement for Republican candidates.

Most masterful at this political sleight-of-hand have been the Coalition's voter guides, which are distributed through churches prior to elections. In the guides the Coalition lists issues important to the religious right and rates how each candidate squares with each issue.

Inevitably, it is a Republican that emerges most favorable to the arch conservative cause. Yet we have in the past defended the Coalition's guides as a legitimate exercise of free speech. We argued that liberals, too, could read the guides and come to an entirely different conclusion about whom to support. We believe that special-interest groups - like the Coalition or environmental organizations - have a right to study the candidates, measure their performance on a narrow list of issues and publicize the results of that study to their supporters without being declared a partisan organization.

But the two most recent revelations of outright partisanship at Coalition meetings go far beyond veiled support for candidates in voter guides. When Pat Robertson discusses the Coalition's strategy for electing the next Republican president and Jay Katzen coaches Christian Coalition volunteers on how to defeat Don Beyer and elect Jim Gilmore, it's hard to believe that the Chesapeake-based group was designed merely to promote political involvement by Christians.

Rather, the Christian Coalition has exposed itself as an organization promoting the Republican Party and its candidates and ideals.

When Pat Robertson likens his organization to the likes of the old Byrd machine and to Tammany Hall in its methods, the Coalition seems to be daring the Internal Revenue Service to strip it of its tax-exempt status. The feds ought to do just that.

The same goes for all other partisan organizations masquerading as tax-exempt advocates of issues.

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