Religion: Jerry Falwell's Crusade

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Activism like that at the Los Gatos church is occurring in communities across the nation. The conservative churches' commitment is rooted in basic issues involving family, church and school, but the broadening agenda reaches into complex international issues. The principal concerns:

ABORTION. The Supreme Court's 1973 legalization of this procedure is perhaps the single most important cause now energizing conservative churches. Fundamentalists and large numbers of Evangelicals base their opposition on millenniums of Jewish and Christian teaching, according to which life in the womb is to be protected, except for severe threats to the mother. (Religious traditions differ on precisely what justifies abortion.) The issue is highly divisive. According to a Gallup poll last October, 50% of Americans think abortion should be outlawed with exceptions only for rape, incest or danger to the mother's life, a view that Falwell is willing to accept.

In some areas antiabortionists have taken their fight to the streets. Women arriving at clinics in many cities face a formidable line of protesters, or "sidewalk counselors," who try to talk them out of getting abortions. Threatened with a boycott of their lucrative annual cookie sale by right-to- lifers, Detroit's Girl Scouts in 1984 deleted mention of abortion and birth control from a proposed training program for adults. In Arizona and North Carolina, Fundamentalists are seeking to prevent public funding for Planned Parenthood, the organization dedicated to providing family planning, including abortion.

Fundamentalists also advocate alternatives to abortion by offering care to pregnant unmarried women and encouraging adoption. Some churches offer free pregnancy tests and help women evaluate the options they have. Falwell's group has organized a national network of Save-a-Baby centers to house unwed pregnant women.

HOMOSEXUALITY. "Is homosexuality a disease? No! It is a sin," insists Preacher Joe Chambers of Paw Creek, N.C. His judgment is based on such Bible references as Leviticus 18: 22 ("You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination") and Romans 1: 27 ("men committing shameless acts with men"). Traditionalists thus believe that government should do nothing to recognize or encourage homosexual activity. In communities across the nation, Fundamentalists and other religionists are lobbying against homosexual-rights bills. They are alarmed by a federal court ruling applying the District of Columbia gay-rights law. The judges rejected Georgetown University's constitutional claim of freedom to practice Catholic teaching and said the Jesuit school should be forced to recognize and fund a gay student group. A rehearing is pending.

< Moral Majority repeatedly uses the gay-rights issue in its direct-mail fund- raising campaigns. At the moment, Falwell is asking his troops to demand a federal task force to consider quarantine or imprisonment for homosexuals who continue sexual activity after they are diagnosed as having AIDS.