Candidate Update: Perot Prays; Bush and Clinton Address Gay Issues

One of the few things that so far can be pinned down about H. Ross Perot is his religious background. Perot worships at the 6,500-member Highland Park Presbyterian Church, an evangelical congregation in Dallas. According to senior pastor B. Clayton Bell, Perot and his family have been members for about 25 years. “The family is very faithful in attendance. When he’s in town, he’s in church,” said Bell, who is executive chairman of the board of directors of Christianity Today, Inc. “I consider him a very good church member and a good friend.”

As a member of Highland Park, Perot has taken the church vows that include “faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and a willingness to live by the disciplines of the Scripture and the church,” Bell said. The congregation has followed Perot’s political possibilities with interest, but, according to Bell, not any more than the rest of the community. “We’ve got active Democrats; we’ve got active Republicans; and we’ve got active Perotites.”

Despite repeated weeks in the media spotlight, little is known about the billionaire businessman’s political positions. Perot told a television interviewer last month that his supporters are not interested in specifics on the issues. “Everybody has detailed positions. Nobody implements them.”

Libertarian in overtone, Perot appears to be generally conservative on economic issues, but more liberal on social issues. Still, he remains ambiguous on most issues, including abortion.

When asked on the “Today Show” if he favors “a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion if she wishes,” Perot replied, “No, that’s true, but I mean—I just can’t say that.” He then advocated “a sense of individual responsibility in a free society,” saying that “if everybody will be responsible for his and her acts, [abortion] will be a tiny, little problem in our society.”

Perot said he would sign the “Freedom of Choice Act,” a bill currently in Congress that would prohibit states from restricting abortion. But Perot’s further comments clearly revealed that he was unfamiliar with all of the measure’s provisions.

Gay-Rights Conundrum

The issue of homosexual rights continues to be a controversial one for the presidential candidates. Bill Clinton made headlines last month when he addressed a fund-raising audience of 600 gay activists. He promised that as president he would lift the federal ban on homosexuals in the military and push AIDS research.

In the past, however, there has been some ambivalence in his position. Both he and Jerry Brown have voiced approval of laws forbidding discrimination against homosexuals. Yet Clinton told the progay Human Rights Campaign Fund earlier this year that he did not believe homosexual couples should have the same marriage, legal, and tax benefits as heterosexual couples. Brown refused to comment on the issue.

President George Bush met with a delegation of evangelical leaders in late April to hear their concerns about overtures his campaign has been making to the gay community. Despite assurances from Bush that he opposes “special laws” for homosexuals, many conservative Christians remain unconvinced.

Capital Currents

What’s wrong with this picture?

It was an incongruous sight; National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) general counsel Forest Montgomery sitting in the front row of the congressional hearing room, nodding and saying “Amen” as American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) president Nadine Strossen testified before a House of Representatives panel in support of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The bill is designed to restore protections for the free exercise of religion, which virtually all religious groups agree were drastically weakened by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1990 Smith decision (CT, Oct. 7, 1991, p. 38). However, as the House Judiciary Subcommittee held two days of hearings on the bill last month, it was apparent that abortion remains the key stumbling block to passage of the bill. Lawyers representing the U.S. Catholic Conference and the National Right to Life Committee testified against the bill, asserting that it would provide “a powerful new legal weapon” for prochoice activists who say abortion is a freedom of religion issue (CT, June 24, 1991, p. 52).

Still, a number of prolife groups, including the NAE, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Christian Action Council, and the Christian Legal Society, disagree that the legislation would further abortion rights and have supported the bill.

New day at the NEA

Acting National Endowment for the Arts chair Anne-Imelda Radice told members of Congress last month that, unlike her predecessor, she would not hesitate to veto federal grants for sexually explicit or blasphemous art. The following week Radice backed up that testimony by denying grants to two controversial proposals. One featured a glass sculpture of sperm and disembodied breasts, and the other included a photo arrangement of pubic hair. In handing down the vetos, Radice said the two were “unlikely to have the long-term artistic significance necessary to merit endowment funding.”

Conservative Christian groups praised Radice’s action, but several continued to call for the end of the agency.

Fetal-tissue bank

Hoping to separate fetal-tissue research from abortion politics, President Bush has issued an executive order directing the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a national fetal-tissue bank. Under Bush’s plan, the new bank will collect tissue from tubal pregnancies and miscarriages, but not induced abortions. The tissue will then be distributed to scientists for research on potential treatments for such disorders as Parkinson’s disease, and diabetes. Since 1988, a federal moratorium has prohibited the use of fetal tissue obtained from induced abortion in any federally funded medical research.

Observers say the bank is the administration’s attempt to show it believes fetal-tissue research is important, without compromising Bush’s prolife position. Critics such as Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) argued that the plan would not provide an adequate amount of usable fetal tissue.

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