Robertson Tries To Censor Negative Stories In Scottish Newspapers.

Angry over reporting about his extreme statements and unusual views, TV preacher Pat Robertson has hired lawyers in Scotland to threaten newspapers with libel suits if they continue their aggressive coverage of him.

Robertson became the focus of controversy in Scotland recently after he announced a deal to provide telephone banking services with the Bank of Scotland. The bank, a venerable institution in Scotland, has been deluged with protests by Scots who resent the partnership with a man of Robertson's ilk. Some groups have even cancelled their accounts with the bank or staged protests at bank branches.

Opponents of the deal have used the World Wide Web to research Robertson (including visiting Americans United's website at www.au.org) and have uncovered the TV preacher's extreme quotes from the past. Many of these have found their way into the Scottish press, which has infuriated Robertson.

In April a Glasgow legal firm sent a note marked "Not for Publication" to The Scotsman, a large daily in Edinburgh, instructing the newspaper to refrain from referring to Robertson as an extremist, a bigot, a racist or an anti-Semite. These claims, said the law firm, are "untrue, inaccurate and in some instances defamatory."

Peter Watson, an attorney with the Glasgow firm, wrote that Robertson does not believe that gays are Satanists, that Presbyterians represent the spirit of the Antichrist and that Muslims and Hindus are inferior to Christians. However, The Scotsman cited several examples from Robertson's "700 Club" and other sources that seem to contradict Watson's claims.

For example, on March 7, 1990, Robertson told his viewers, "Many of those people involved with Adolf Hitler were Satanists. Many of them were homosexuals. The two things seem to go together." On January 14, 1991, he remarked, "You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that and the other thing. Nonsense! I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist." And on January 7, 1991, he called Hinduism "devil worship, ultimately."

In late April Robert McNeal, a reporter for The Scotsman, interviewed AU Assistant Director of Communications Robert Boston about Robertson. Boston, author of The Most Dangerous Man in America?: Pat Robertson and the Rise of the Christian Coalition, noted that the TV preacher has a long track record of making extreme statements and then trying to deny he said them or asserting they have been taken out of context.

"The evidence is clear," Boston said. "There is no context in which to make these statements that would have been favorable. The context was bad enough."

In other news about the Religious Right:

* Gov. George W. Bush of Texas is trying to woo Pat Robertson into his presidential camp. Bush, the GOP frontrunner, told The New York Times in April that he recently had "a very frank discussion" with Robertson during which the candidate talked about "my heart, what my beliefs are."

Asked if he wants Robertson's endorsement, Bush replied, "I want everybody to support me."

* A state judge in Oklahoma has dismissed a libel lawsuit brought against the state affiliate of the Christian Coalition by a state legislator who says his views were misrepresented on a voter guide. Sen. Dave Herbert, a Midwest City Democrat, said the Coalition accused him of supporting decriminalizing sodomy and bestiality, giving minors access to pornography on the World Wide Web and favoring abortion on demand last November.

Oklahoma County District Judge Karl Gray ruled that the statements on the guide were opinion and thus protected political speech. Under libel law, public officials must prove that false statements made about them were done with malice, a standard the judge said Herbert had not met. The judge did not rule on the issue of whether or not the CC guide was accurate. (Herbert v. Oklahoma Christian Coalition)

* The Maine Christian Coalition's director has been fined $250 for violating campaign financing laws.

Maine's Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices said Paul Voile failed to register his company, Management Research and Development Association, as a political action committee. Voile used the firm to distribute an anti-gay tabloid newspaper to households in South Portland in an effort to block a proposed gay rights ordinance last October. The Commission determined that the purpose of the paper was not to educate but to influence the outcome of an election.

Volle told the Portland Press Herald that he paid the fine "under protest."

* Operation Rescue, the militant anti-abortion group founded by Randall Terry, has changed its name and adopted a new focus. According to spokeswoman Eileen Schopf, the group will now be known as Operation Save America. While it will continue to work against abortion, it will also oppose homosexuality, child pornography and teen sex. The group will also advocate Christian worship in public schools.

"We do want to save this country, not just the unborn," Schopf was quoted as saying in The National Catholic Reporter. "We want to show our love for this country and our desire to return to the moral grounds this country was founded on."

The group's anti-abortion protests in Buffalo this spring were a flop, with only about 200 protesters taking part.