Battling the religious right.

Fixing the bright blue bumper sticker Celebrate Diversity on a car in Colorado Springs is no token gesture of political correctness. It signifies support for one embattled group's fight against the growing influence of the Religious Right in the political affairs of the community. Citizen's Project has distributed more than 15,000 of the stickers, even though, as co-founder Amy Divine commented, "Diversity has become a dirty word in this community."

Opponents of the group's message have defaced the bumper stickers so they read, Celebrate Perversity. More than one car sporting the original slogan has been run off the road.

But the Project's 6,000 members are not so easily quashed. Their aim is to challenge the Religious Right's anti-gay, procensorship, pro-school-prayer efforts and the atmosphere of religious intolerance it fosters in Colorado Springs.

Citizen's Project has come out in strong opposition to Amendment Two, the measure that would prohibit gay-rights laws. It has also objected to various attempts to modify school curricula. In one case a teacher showed graphic footage of a suction abortion from a Pat Robertson video as part of a class on human sexuality. In another instance, parents brought a lawsuit against a local school for its teaching of Greek and Roman mythology.

It was this last incident that alerted Divine and her husband, Doug Triggs, to the growing intolerance of the community. Colorado Springs has long been a conservative-minded town, but over the past few years, Christian ministries and organizations have been flocking here. More than sixty of these religious groups are now based in Colorado Springs. New office blocks keep springing up all over town.

The Citizen's Project has responded with a variety of strategies. It has had school-board candidates fill out comprehensive surveys to expose "stealth" candidates who hide their religious affiliations and right-wing agendas. It has hosted seminars on the workings of the political process, advising citizens on how they can get involved. In the fall, it will be holding training sessions for teachers and school administrators on religion in schools.

But for Divine, the biggest achievement of the project is the hardest to measure. "There is not a day that doesn't go by without someone calling the office or stopping me in the street and saying, |Thank God Citizen's Project is here.'"

Though opponents have labeled Project members "anti-Christian" and "radical leftists," supporters refute both tags. Dr. Harvey Martz, a minister at the Calvary United Methodist Church and a member of the Project, notes, "They are very sympathetic to religion at its best." Nor does Martz believe that the Project has a political ax to grind. "I do not find them a liberal voice only," he says. "They are trying to encourage dialogue among disparate groups."

As part of that attempt, the Project has started holding "dialogue dinners." Eight to ten people from opposing sides meet to have dinner, and, the Project hopes, to talk. Divine is not optimistic that the Project can persuade the Religious Right to accept such concepts as pluralism or diversity of ideas, but she does hope that, through the Project's efforts, the two sides can find ways to coexist. And, amid the climate of conservatism, she hopes other voices, minority voices, will be heard. "That's part of why we're here - to be a little voice in the wilderness saying |No.'"