APor 12/11 0537 Moonie Suit By BOB EGELKO Associated Press Writer SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --

APor 12/11 0537 Moonie Suit

   By BOB EGELKO Associated Press Writer

   SAN FRANCISCO  (AP)  --  A  case involving the Rev.  Sun Myung
Moon's Unification Church  may  determine  whether  controversial
church  recruiting  methods can be the subject of damage suits by
disillusioned ex-members, or are protected from court scrutiny by
the constitutional freedom of religion.

   The clash between claims of religious freedom and mind control
in Moon's church was played out before the  state  Supreme  Court
Thursday in a security-conscious courtroom.

   "We  can't  have  any  freedom  of  religion  if we don't have
freedom of thought," said attorney Stanley Lea, father of one  of
three ex-Moonies who claim they were brainwashed into joining the
church and working for it.

   "There  is  no evidence of physical restraint, violence, force
or threat of force," countered the church's lawyer, Kenneth Ross.
"Before they joined, they knew it was the Unification Church."

   Spectators, who nearly  filled  the  courtroom,  had  to  pass
through a metal detector, which is used for all cases but was set
more  sensitively  than usual because of the nature of this case,
said court spokeswoman Lynn Holton.

   At the start of the  argument,  an  unidentified  man  in  the
audience  stood,  began chanting, and pulled balloons and teabags
out of a pink plastic bag and tossed them in the air.  He was led
away by security guards.

   Leal's daughter, Tracy, then 19, was stopping in San Francisco
on her way to  visit  Humboldt  State  University  when  she  was
recruited.   Another  plaintiff,  David  Molko, was a 27-year-old
lawyer from Pennsylvania, recently arrived in San Francisco.  The
third, Barbara Dole, 19,  was  recruited  on  the  University  of
California at Berkeley campus.

   All  three  said  they were approached by people who said they
were part of the Creative Community Project and invited them to a
meeting.  The recruiters denied any  religious  affiliation  when
questioned by Molko.

   The  three said they were talked into going to a remote church
encampment.  By the time they learned of Moon's  involvement  and
joined   the   church,   they  said,  they  had  been  thoroughly
indoctrinated and their will to resist was gone.

   After several months of raising money for  the  church,  Molko
and Ms.  Leal  were  abducted and "deprogrammed."  Ms.  Dole said
she raised $300,000 for the church in five years  before  leaving
voluntarily.

   Their fraud  suits  were  dismissed  in  Superior  Court.   In
upholding the dismissal, the 1st District Court  of  Appeal  said
that  however  objectionable  a  church's  recruiting tactics may
seem, the Constitution prevents a court from inquiring into  "the
spiritual nature of its hold on its members."