Tale of the telling tape: Pat Robertson unplugged.

Who would want to miss the Ralph Reed Appreciation Dinner at the 1997 Christian Coalition "Road to Victory" Conference in Atlanta? Not me. I always go to these conferences to observe what new distortions of truth Pat Robertson is promoting and try to give the press a "second opinion" on the festivities. Sometimes, though, I do skip the dinner programs.

One of the reasons to forgo the fancy chicken (why is it always chicken at these banquets?) is the awkwardness of knowing where to sit. You can't just sit with other observing anti-Coalition activists because that whole table could theoretically become a target for well-aimed dinner rolls. On the other hand, I don't particularly want to be recognized by my dinner companions as that guy Robertson has characterized as an "intolerant jerk."

Moreover, this year I had been featured in a pre-convention news piece on Robertson's "700 Club" television program that morning and was even more readily identifiable. A disguise seemed out of the question, so I strolled into the banquet hall a few minutes late, trying to keep a low profile.

I found a table that seemed to have mainly people attending by themselves and sat down. The gentleman next to me was from Ohio, and we struck up a conversation. He observed that attendance seemed to be down this year. I concurred and said I'd been attending for many years.

"Are you active in a chapter?" he asked. The moment of truth had arrived. "No," I replied. "Frankly, I don't really agree with many of the Coalition's positions." He leaned over, cupping his mouth with his hand and whispered, "Neither do I, but this is a cheap way to hear a lot of good speakers." He then continued about how it bothered him that the Coalition was "just an arm of the Republican Party."

Later, when I mentioned that my wife was at a medical conference in Paris (I'll bet she wasn't eating chicken) focusing on end-of-life issues and the ethics of physician-assisted suicide, he said he was troubled by that practice. But then he added, "At the other end, I don't think you can have the government ban abortions."

At this point, I was very close to pulling out an Americans United application form. My new friend seemed shocked anew when Robertson suggested during his banquet remarks that states should be allowed to once again ban contraceptives.

I've thought a great deal about my dinner companion since that evening, particularly during the barrage of publicity about the "secret" Pat Robertson tape we released to the news media. This was truly "Pat Robertson raw," as one journalist put it (or, perhaps "Pat Robertson Unplugged" if you are an MTV viewer).

The content of the speech is obviously outrageous and sometimes bizarre. If I had said Robertson ran a corrupt political machine like that of Boss Tweed's Tammany Hall, he would probably be checking with his libel lawyers. Yet now from his own mouth, we've learned that emulating Tammany Hall is exactly his political aspiration for the coalition.

Following release of the tape, Robertson's spokesmen tried to justify his comments. Their efforts were laughable. We were told that Robertson was just speaking as a "private citizen." Sure. Although he happens to be the chairman of the board of the Christian Coalition and happened to be speaking to his state chapter leaders in an official Christian Coalition event in association with its annual conference, we are asked to accept that this was nothing more than a personal chat. Anyone who listens to the tape for even a few minutes will readily understand how nonsensical that assertion is.

Moreover, Robertson's remarks that any press in the room should "shoot themselves" and his claim that journalists would "salivate" to know what he was saying should be a real clue that he knew he was speaking about inappropriate activities.

I was delighted that the story about our release of the tape appeared in The New York Times am The Washington Post and was distributed to virtually every newspaper in the United States through the Associated Press and the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain. Literally hundreds of papers picked up the story, and in addition, television segments appeared on CNN's "Inside Politics" and ABC's "Nightline."

I know that the tape reconfirms what many Americans United members have known all along, but I'm happy that my mail and phone calls reflect an even more important phenomenon: Many people who were ambivalent about Robertson before release of the tape now seem to want nothing to do with him. That means that Robertson's publicly asserted goal of doubling membership in the Coalition by the year 2000 will be much harder to achieve -- unless he just creates them out of the air like many of his current members.

I'd also like to think that my dinner companion from Ohio might even be a little more reluctant to sign a check for the Christian Coalition at renewal time. After all, we at Americans United have some great speakers at our conferences, too. (I hope to see all of you Nov. 1-3. Call us today to register.)