c. 1996 Religion News Service

HUDSON, Ohio _ A controversy of ideological fervor sprang to life recently that rousted this quaint, New England-flavored village of century-old homes and shaded streets out of its Norman Rockwell existence.

Not since the early `80s, when a McDonald’s restaurant threatened to stick its golden arches within sight of the village green, had a single issue stirred up such a stink in Hudson’s suburban splendor.

Concerned citizens packed public meetings. They formed ad hoc committees and political groups. They flooded the local weekly newspaper with letters to the editor.

And in the end, they succeeded in rescuing a high school history textbook from censorship.

But beyond the core conflict of whether the book “The American People” was too depressing, too unpatriotic, too minority-oriented and generally unfit for advanced history students at Hudson High, as its critics contended, there remained the clear evidence of a new, influential force to be reckoned within the community: conservative Christians.

And although the dispute may have been emotionally unsettling at the time, many people now see a silver lining emerging from the educational battleground.

For legions of disinterested residents, the textbook flap reawakened a sense of civic awareness and democratic responsibility.

“People got involved and pulled together,” said Mike Prescott, who cuts hair and trades gossip at the Prescott Brothers barbershop just off the green. “Everybody kind of closed ranks on this one like I’ve never seen before.”

Hudson school board member William A. Currin said the citizen involvement was unlike anything he had witnessed in the 27 years he has lived there.

“It woke up the sleeping majority,” Currin said. “People came to the meetings and started fulfilling their democratic responsibilities.”

Dividing the community and stirring the opposition into action wasn’t the original intent of school board member Kenneth J. Claypoole and his conservative Christian supporters when they mounted a challenge against the textbook in June. But if attention was a goal, there is no question the public foray succeeded.

`Taking the arrows’

“Even if I am in the minority, it is always worth my while to stand up for what I believe in,” Claypoole said. “A lot of people are for me, and others would be, too, if they understood the issues. I’m the out-front person taking the arrows for others who can’t.”

The emergence of the Christian right in this upper-middle-class enclave represents a segment of a larger, increasingly formidable conservative movement that has swept the country.

Examples of its energy and strength can be found in a variety of forums. In government, conservative Christians take credit for providing much of the impetus for the Republican Party’s sweeping election victories, winning three of the last four presidential elections, the first majority in the U.S. House in 50 years and a majority of state governorships.

The movement has exerted its influence on the platform of the GOP, whose registered membership now consists of anywhere from a quarter to half of people who call themselves Christian conservatives.

In politics in general, the movement has established itself as a major player in fund-raising and decision-making power, particularly the Christian Coalition, founded by Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson and run by Ralph Reed. It is widely believed that pressure from Reed and his supporters has compelled Bob Dole to stick with the party’s controversial anti-abortion stance during his presidential campaign.

And in society as a whole, evidence of the movement’s support can be found in the popularity of radio psychiatrist James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family,” whose message often deals with public school reforms and the evils of pornography.

The newest player in this conservative powerhouse is a group called Citizens for Excellence in Education, founded in California in 1983 by Robert Simonds.

It’s a grassroots-oriented organization that seeks to make changes at the most basic level: in public schools. To accomplish this, the CEE strives to influence boards of education by electing like-minded people to the school boards. The group claims to have elected 12,625 conservative Christians to school boards since 1989, and to control the boards of 2,050 schools with conservative Christian majorities.

`Clash of cultural views’

Simonds wrote a booklet that has become the organization’s bible called “How to Elect Christians to Public Office.”

Its stated goals are “to help protect Christian children” from “socialistic, atheistic, new age and value-free” public schools. Simonds’ election tactic of choice is to de-emphasize being a Christian, but to emphasize the candidate’s status as a conservative parent concerned about the well-being of children.

Telephone calls placed to Simonds’ headquarters in Santa Ana, Calif., were not returned. A professor who has studied Simonds and his role in the conservative Christian movement thinks he knows the reason.

“My guess is that there is a deep-seated suspicion of the news media, which he considers an agent of the enemy,” said John Green, a political science professor at the University of Akron.

Simonds provided a window to his life’s work in a 1993 interview with The Los Angeles Times: “It’s a clash of cultural views, a clash of religious beliefs, a clash of traditional values,” he said. “More than all of those things, it’s a clash of power.”

Hudson is one of a growing number of school districts where the Christian right has forged a presence, joining such divergent locales as Merrimack, N.H.; Gettysburg, Pa.; Lake County, Fla.; Vista, Calif.; and Round Rock, Texas. The CEE says it has established 1,550 chapters, which would place it in roughly half of the counties in the United States.

“I don’t think anyone really knows how successful the CEE has become,” said Green. “They’ve become organized and active, so you’d have to say they’ve been fairly successful from that point of view. But how often do they actually win? It’s a mixed bag, depending on the political nature of the community.”

A leading critic of the conservative Christians is Skipp Porteous, a former evangelical minister who experienced a change of heart about 10 years ago. Over the past decade, he has made it his mission to monitor challenges to the First Amendment and to defend the separation of church and state, which often brings him into conflict with the conservative Christian movement. He says the victories won by Citizens for Excellence in Education pale next to the turmoil the group often causes when it comes to town.

Offering an opposing view, the head of the Hudson chapter of CEE says his group speaks for the majority of God-fearing, law-abiding families unable or unwilling to speak for themselves.

`Fear of ridicule’

“Unfortunately, we have come to the point these days where many concerned citizens are reluctant or afraid to state their legitimate concerns in public for fear of ridicule and intimidation,” Robert Lattimer, the head of the Hudson chapter of the CEE, wrote in a recent letter to The Plain Dealer of Cleveland.

“This is not the way our democratic process is supposed to work. People have the right to have their ideas and concerns heard in an open, nonthreatening environment. Until this process is restored, divisiveness will continue where reason should prevail.”

Divisiveness seems to follow the CEE in whatever school district it turns up, said Porteous, founder of the Institute for First Amendment Studies in Great Barrington, Mass. “Wherever they appear, religious right school board members cause dissension and hard feelings, and waste time and money, until they are thrown out in the next election,” he said.

He said that what transpired in Hudson was typical of the CEE’s impact on cities. “People get shocked to their senses and start voting again,” Porteous said.

MJP END RNS