Pat Robertson Group Finds Unlikely Allies : Activism: Christian Coalition gets support from Jews and blacks in campaign to elect candidates with traditional values to school boards.

NEW YORK —  As Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition moves forward with its national campaign to attack liberalism at the grass roots, his organization is touting its controversial school board campaign in New York City as a high-water mark of religious and ethnic cooperation.

At a news conference here Wednesday, black and Jewish leaders weighed in with endorsements of the coalition’s campaign of indirect support for candidates who bring “traditional values” into the schools. Lending their support to the effort were Roy Innis, the national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, and Rabbi Shea Hecht, leader of the National Committee for Jewish Education.

Innis’ promise to help distribute the coalition’s voter guides follows an announcement by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York that it would allow distribution of 100,000 of the pamphlets in more than 200 Catholic parishes in the city. That would be in addition to the coalition’s plans to distribute 400,000 guides in Protestant churches in the five boroughs of New York.

Thus, with cooperation from portions of the Catholic, Jewish and African-American communities, the conservative Christian Coalition has forged ties with groups it frequently is at odds with. The common ground includes support for parental rights, basic skills, school prayer and sexual abstinence rather than condoms as a preventer against AIDS.

The coalition is actively involved in election campaigns elsewhere, including the mayoral contest in Los Angeles and a Senate race in Texas, said Ralph Reed, national director of the Chesapeake, Va.-based coalition.

Reed hailed the New York partnerships as “the most significant amount of cooperation we’ve ever had.” Contending that New York “has become a laboratory for this experiment and a very successful one,” Reed added, “We have always desired to reach out to those who have historically been ignored by the pro-family movement.”

Particularly significant, he said, is the fact that New York is considered one of the nation’s most liberal cities. “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere,” he said.

In a prepared statement, Innis said CORE would help distribute the guides, which document the positions of 160 school board candidates, out of a total of 543, who responded to questions on such issues as voluntary school prayer and homosexuality.

“This agreement marks the beginning of a broad-based coalition--a true partnership for decency,” Innis said. “We are all team players in an important campaign for the family.”

The Congress of Racial Equality, founded in Chicago in 1942, was a prominent force in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and is dedicated to fighting racism and discrimination. As such, it is an organization historically more at home with political liberals than conservatives.

The Christian Coalition voter guides do not endorse any particular candidates but list each survey participant’s position on issues important to the coalition.

The voter guides drew sharp criticism from the People for the American Way Action Fund, a liberal group based in Washington that champions the cause of religious liberty.

Barbara Handman, director of the fund, issued a statement accusing the Christian Coalition of supporting candidates under cover of a voter education campaign.

“For three months Religious Right leaders have been in New York organizing phone trees, networking with churches and, by their own words, identifying candidates, all under a cloak of secrecy,” charged Handman.

“For them, this is not just a massive effort to educate the voters--this is about electing candidates.”

Although the Christian Coalition maintains that it has made some inroads into congregations of the more liberal mainline Protestant community, some leaders in the Protestant mainline are counterattacking.

The Rev. James Forbes, the pastor of Riverside Church, jointly affiliated with the United Church of Christ and American Baptist Churches, plans to lead a march Sunday from a local public school to the church, where he will deliver a sermon on the Religious Right.

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to its members in New York City warning about the coalition campaign and calling on them to vote in the elections, which will be held on Tuesday.