ACTIVIST SAN DIEGO

Tips from Morton Metersky

By Morton Metersky
Join with religious leaders to form a broad based coalition of synagogues and churches. The synagogue at which I am the vice president for community affairs started a committee to address the threat of political religious extremists whose major players in our area are the Christian Coalition and Citizens for Excellence in Education. We then took the initiative to form a local coalition of synagogues and churches.
Our coalition established a three-pronged approach. These, as well as other steps, should be instituted at the grassroots level across the county in churches, synagogues, temples, and fellowships.

Educate the public on how the Radical Religious Right uses issues to cause divisiveness and to cloak its true theocratic goals. This includes encouraging rabbis and ministers to make their congregants aware of the political religious extremists' threat to basic constitutional freedoms.
As part of the educational process, write letters to the editor and call talk shows with facts concerning the Radical Right's agenda. Hold forums using panelists who are well-informed public figures and invite your local radio and television stations to attend.

Expose political religious extremists' "stealth candidates," a strategy that has gained them political power at all levels of government. By questioning candidates regarding church-state separation, censorship, and religious freedom, these candidates are usually easy to uncover.
After questioning all the candidates, help develop voter guides. Encourage local groups, like the League of Women Voters, Planned Parenthood and other organizations that do voter guides, to include questions related to separation of church and state.

Get out the vote to counter the Radical Right's heavy turnout at the polls - voter apathy has been the key to their political success. Conduct a voter registration drive by setting up phone banks and encouraging sympathetic clergy to teach their congregations the importance of voting.

The following are the "Ten Commandments of Action" taken from a memorandum by Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, Director, Commission on Social Action, with some amendments.

Recognize the danger signals. Assign a subcommittee of your Social Action Committee to follow developments in the local school district. Watch for signs of political religious extremists' influence.

Write letters to state legislators and congress people. Establish a subcommittee to draft letters that congregants can send about issues related to the political religious extremists. Inform your state and federal legislators about your concerns regarding the true goals of the political religious extremists and ask whether they are endorsed by any of their organizations.

Write letters to the editor when a political religious extremist related letter or article appears. Do this by holding a forum for all candidates, and then ask them very specific questions demanding precise answers. For example, what is the role of religion in the school, should creationism be taught in science classes, who should determine appropriate books for the school library, sex education in the school important, etc.

Enlist the assistance of the non-Jewish community. Establish a coalition with mainstream Protestants, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Unitarians, Muslims and other religious groups.

Encourage involvement in voting in local and state elections. Rabbis, ministers and active social action committees can play a vital role in bringing local issues to the attention of the congregation to vote - both in a nonpartisan manner.

Educate the congregation about political religious extremists. Hold educational programs and seminars for your congregations, and the general and Jewish community. Discuss constitutional issues involved in the activities of the political religious extremists. Make them aware of their true goals. Monitoring ongoing religious political extremist activity in your community. Monitor local talk shows for political religious extremist activities.

Visit local Christian bookstores for political religious extremist literature, tapes, etc.

Encourage your school board to improve communications with the community. The more the citizenry feels a sense of participation and ownership in the educational process, the less likely they are to believe the lies and distortions the political religious extremist affiliated school board members place before them as facts. Attend school board meetings to uncover suspected "stealth" members.

Stay in touch with the Commission on Social Action and the Religious Action Center. Let them know about the actions of the political religious extremists in your community and how you have responded.

I'm sure you can come up with other ideas. Don't be afraid to try something. You never know when it might work. If fundamentalists get on the school board, another weapon you can use is a recall vote. In Vista, California, stealth candidates took over the school board. They initiated the teaching of creationism, eliminated sex education and banned books, among other things. The community arose in protest and recalled all the fundamentalist and elected new people to the school board.
The Reform Movement, through the Religious Action Center, helped found the Coalition to Preserve Religious Liberty. It is a broad coalition of religious groups working together to ensure that our religious freedoms are not trampled by political and religious extremists. You are not alone.
You can get information on getting organized from all the following: People for the American Way, 800-326-PFAW; The Interfaith Alliance, 202-639-6370; the Religious Action Center, 202-387-2800; and the Institute for First Amendment Studies, 413-528-3800.

This article was first published in the August 1996 issue of Freedom Writer.