c. 2000 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ As Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore pepper their campaigns with references to the need for faith and morality in the nation, two faith leaders who polled the men on their views of nuclear weapons accuse them of “political immorality” on the issue of nuclear disarmament.

Both Bush and Gore dodged survey questions about the morality of using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Gumbleton and United Methodist Bishop C. Dale White told a news conference Thursday (Sept. 7) convened to make public the results of a 10-question survey sent in August to Bush, Gore, both Reform Party presidential candidates and Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

Reform Party candidates John Hagelin and Pat Buchanan did not respond to the survey, which was issued on behalf of 48 religious leaders from a range of faith groups, including the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, the Religious Society of Friends, Evangelicals for Social Action and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

“This surely is the height of idolatry for the human family to so threaten not only the entire human community, but the biosphere itself,” said Gumbleton. “It is a negation of the major foundation of people of the Book _ Muslim people, Jewish people, Christian people _ who have held that the universe and all in it was made by the Creator. It is idolatry to assume that we have the capacity to damage that creation.”

Gore and Bush also steered clear of answering how they would abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to achieve nuclear disarmament, or whether they support a global convention to advance that goal.

Nader rose to the challenge on both questions, offering six proposals to meet the treaty’s objective _ from adopting a “no first-use policy” for nuclear weapons to starting talks “with all nuclear nations” to develop “a final date for the abolition of nuclear weapons.”

Working toward total elimination of nuclear weapons “is the only moral and rational course,” Nader wrote.

“Nuclear weapons have no moral or practical use for any purpose except as a deterrent to nuclear threats,” Nader declared. “If elected president, I would immediately adopt a policy that the U.S. will never be the first to use a nuclear weapon in any conflict, and would urge other nuclear powers to do the same.”

Both Gore and Nader supported ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but Bush said the treaty was “not enforceable” and “offers only words and false hopes and high intentions _ with no guarantees whatever.” He said he did support stopping “the contagious spread of weapons of mass destruction, and the means to deliver them” when asked what other initiatives he would take to eliminate nuclear weapons.

In responding to the same question, Nader said he would phase out the use of nuclear power in the United States altogether, and halt “research into the design of new nuclear weapons, improving existing types and creating new types.”

He would also “abandon research into the useless and wasteful National Missile Defense program,” a $60 billion project whose future President Clinton decided last week to leave in the hands of his successor, and stop the United States from promoting nuclear power abroad.

“The U.S. has all the nuclear weapons that it ever needs,” wrote Nader. “Further research is likely to destabilize our position by making other countries feel threatened, and could damage our security directly when our ideas leak out and are copied. There are no benefits except to contractors at our national labs and military contractors in general. It is time to put the interests of the people of this world above the profits of General Dynamics and Lockheed-Martin.”

Bush stopped short of promising to negotiate a START III arms reduction agreement with Russia, or agree with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that each nation reduce its arms stockpile to about 1,000. Bush wrote only that he would “pursue the lowest possible number (of weapons) consistent with national security.”

“Unneeded weapons,” he added, “are the expensive relics of dead conflicts” and “do nothing to make us more secure.”

“That’s an interesting choice of words,” noted Gumbleton. “If that is the case, why not offer to do away with those weapons immediately?”

The arms reduction treaty was embraced by Nader, who wrote that he would “immediately begin negotiations of a START III agreement that will bring missile levels below 1,000.”

“Once we have achieved this level of disarmament we would be in a position to begin talks with all nuclear nations for the negotiation of deeper cuts and the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons.”

Gore noted the Clinton administration is working on negotiation of a START III Treaty, and wrote that he believed “in the value of nuclear deterrence for the foreseeable future” but is also “interested in seeing our nuclear arsenal reduced substantially through arms control.”

DEA END RNS