Christians Seek To Root Out ‘Stealth Candidates’

Take the pledge.

That’s what the Interfaith Alliance of Washington State is asking 22 school-board candidates to do in what has become a pilot project to promote tolerance and smoke out “stealth candidates” from what is sometimes called the religious right.

“Our purpose is to unmask those hidden agendas,” said the Rev. Walter John Boris of Kirkland Congregational Church United Church of Christ.

Candidates signing the pledge promise to “affirm the religious diversity of this country” and “reject any political group which preaches or practices exclusion and intolerance, including any assertion that votes for its candidates are ‘votes for God.”’

The alliance sent questionnaires and copies of the pledge to school-board candidates in Olympia and in the Lake Washington, Northshore and Edmonds school districts in the Seattle suburbs. The questionnaires seek the candidates’ stands on such issues as school prayer, use of tax dollars for private or parochial schools, and the teaching of creationism. Results are being compiled for a voter guide to be distributed before the elections Nov. 7. Total cost is estimated at $26,000.

Northshore incumbent Sue Paro said she signed without reservation.

“For me as a religious person, it’s a breath of fresh air to know that you can be a religious person and not be as negative as Christian Coalition,” she said.

Dave Welch, state director of Christian Coalition, said he knew of no stealth strategy among religious conservatives.

“To make it appear that this is a major agenda with any kind of major organization of Christian conservatives is absurd,” he said.

“We believe candidates should take positions on issues and say who and what they are.”

At the same time, there are those who “vocally and hostilely attack people for their faith,” Welch noted, “so often people are necessarily leery about exposing themselves to that kind of attack.”

He said he had no objection to the survey but considered the pledge “too broad and meaningless.”

Candidates signing the pledge vow to “campaign without any appeal to prejudice or discrimination based on race, religion, gender, marital status, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability or age.”