ONCORD - New Hampshire religious leaders, organized as part of a national alliance seeking more ''civility'' in public debate, want the presidential primary to reflect that goal.
Formed five years ago, the national group known as the Interfaith Alliance has denounced the religious right and other groups that it says have provoked a climate in which anti-ethnic and anti-gay hate crimes have multiplied.
Its recently formed New Hampshire chapter is asking politicians and religious leaders to steer clear of hate signals, especially during the overheated primary campaign period.
''We are a watchdog group attentive to the commercials, the claims and the assertions of every candidate,'' warns one chairman of the New Hampshire group.
''If this campaign goes as every other one has, when things get tight they'll go to negative campaigning, and a component of that is identifying candidates with unpopular groups, and that is uncivil,'' said Christopher Emerson, senior pastor at the First Congregational Church in Manchester and cochair of the state's new Interfaith Alliance chapter.
At the same time, the New Hampshire group rejects any effort to pigeonhole it as a left-leaning counterbalance to the powerful religious right.
''We are not the religious left,'' declared Rabbi Arthur Starr, cochair of the state's new Interfaith Alliance chapter and a leader of the movement in the state. ''We are liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats from different religious and political ideologies.''
Uniting the multi-faith group is the wish to harness religion's ''positive power'' to help people get along.
''I can disagree with you on the death penalty, abortion or whether gays should be ministers, but we're committed to talk about these issues in a civil way that promotes community,'' said the Rev. Nancy Vogele, associate rector of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Goffstown and a member of the group's steering committee. ''It's important to stand up and promote love - not hate.''
''We do not presume to agree with each other on matters political or religious,'' said Emerson. ''But we feel we have a common commitment as citizens of faith to stand and speak against hatred, especially hatred that breeds violence and hatred that claims to express God's will. We say no.''
Horrified by a rash of hate crimes across the country, the Interfaith Alliance launched a national ''Stop the Hate'' campaign this spring.
''We believe religious communities and particularly communities of faith have a critical role in adressing these societal problems,'' explained Amber Khan, communication director for the Washington-based national group.
The movement's New Hampshire leaders express revulsion at the murder of James Byrd Jr., the black Texas man attacked by three white men last year as he walked home from work and dragged in chains to his death behind a pickup truck.
Then there was Matthew Shepard, the young gay college student bludgeoned and left to die, lashed to a fence post in Laramie, Wyo. And Barnett Slepian, a doctor who did abortions, gunned down in his Amherst, N.Y., kitchen. This fall, a shooting rampage in a Baptist church in Texas left four more people dead, including a Sunday school teacher. Arsonists torched synagogues in Sacramento, Calif.
New Hampshire is not exempt from the hate crime wave. State Police report 17 hate crimes last year targeting blacks, Catholics, Jews, gays and bisexuals. And because only 90 of the state's 200-plus police departments report their hate crimes, State Police say their statistics are incomplete.
The FBI defines a ''bias'' or ''hate crime'' as a crime fueled by someone's bias against a race, religion, ethnic or national origin, or sexual orientation.
Calling it ''domestic terrorism,'' Vogele says it has to stop.
Last spring, she sat on an alliance-sponsored panel on ''civility in public discourse and the future of democracy.''
A curriculum being developed by the national alliance will help communities explore the social causes of hate. Now, the group wants presidential candidates to sign a ''framework of civility'' pledging to avoid Willie Horton-style attack ads that could fan prejudice for political points.
(Willie Horton, a convicted killer, attacked a couple while he was on prison furlough. In 1988, the George Bush presidential campaign used the incident to bash his opponent, Democrat Michael Dukakis.)
Last Thursday, the alliance and an older peace and justice group called the Fellowship of Reconciliation held an anti-hate vigil on the State House steps in Concord.
Propelling Geoff Knowlton to attend was his childhood experience watching his adopted Korean-born brother and two native American sisters harassed while he was growing up in the Northeast in the '60s.
''Halloween was always a tough time. We got racial epithets soaped on our windows,'' recalls Knowlton, a pastor at Pelham's First Congregational Church.
Knowlton also chairs the New Hampshire Coalition for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Concerns. Speaking as a ''straight white male,'' he also worries that gay-bashing is on the rise in the country.
Not only do his gay pastor friends have a terrible time finding work, he says, ''I know one woman who got death threats after she came out. And her dog was shot, here in New Hampshire, in the '90s.''
Khan says that by publicly downgrading gays and other minorities, ''the rhetoric of the Christian right creates a culture in which these acts of violence against people are seen as more acceptable.''
According to a press release for last week's rally, the Interfaith Alliance draws on shared religious principles to ''promote the positive and healing role of religion in public life and challenge those who manipulate religion to promote an extreme political agenda.''
''We believe there's a socio-political movement growing in our country known as the religious right we see manipulating scripture to justify partisan agendas specifically designed to target minority groups in our society,'' explained spokeswoman Khan.
Among its hot-button issues are affirmative action, gays and lesbians, reproductive rights, abortion, international family planning, public education, religious liberty and more, said Kahn.
''It's a socio-political movement characterized by their willingness to take political positions on public policy matters and elevate them to the status of religious doctrine,'' she said.
Khan says its most vocal members include the Christian Coalition led by founder-president Pat Robertson and the Family Research Council.
Members of the alliance's New Hampshire chapter were reluctant to discuss the religious right.
Pressed, Vogele said it's not just the Christian Coalition she disagrees with. ''It's supremacist white churches that manipulate Christianity to say all these other groups are polluting our race,'' she said. ''In no way do I want to compare them to the religious right.''
Asked what makes the alliance different, she said the Christian Coalition, for instance, takes specific stands on issues. ''The difference is I might disagree with you on a specific issue but we're coming together on how we're going to live,'' she explained. ''It's more behavioral than ideological.''
Meanwhile, Ed Holdgate, secretary of the New Hampshire Christian Coalition, said any suggestion that his group fosters a climate of violence is off-base.
''It's unfortunate that some folks have trouble distinguishing between the scriptural message that Christ died for all of us from our attempts to guide society in a scripturally designed direction,'' he objected.
If the Christian Coalition takes stands on issues, Holdgate says, it's because ''scripture takes specific stands on specific issues.''
''Satan would like nothing better than to divide us over politics,'' he said, ''but scripture compels many of us to remain true to the issues.''
As for recent news reports that the Christian Coalition is emerging from near-demise, Holdgate wryly said: ''News of our near-death experience is premature.''
