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Lydia Gutierrez has picked up the endorsement of an Evangelical Christian group in her race against board President Richard Vladovic and another challenger in the LA Unified District 7 school board campaign.

Election Forum, a California-based group that urges people to “vote for, not against, their Biblical values,” has made her the only candidate in any of the three contested district races that the group is supporting. 

Based on answers to candidate questionnaires, the group responds with anything from no recommendation to the top result, three “thumbs up.” Gutierrez received three thumbs up.

While her answers to the questionnaire have not been made publicly available, the questions are. They include:

• Do you support or oppose The Transgender Bathroom Bill (AB1266) signed into law by Governor Brown? Why or Why not?
• Do you favor or oppose the expansion of charter schools within the school district? Why or why not? Do you favor or oppose the use of voucher system within the public school system? Why or Why not?
• Do you believe there is a place for celebrations of religious holidays and singing religious music in holiday programs? What would you support and allow and what should be excluded from the school?
• When teaching science, should alternatives to evolution (such as Intelligent Design) be taught in public schools? Should individual instructors be given leeway to teach both points of view? Or should only the accepted theories of evolution be taught without mentioning the scientific objections to the theory?

In answers to questions posed to all candidates by the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund, she made no reference to any religious rationale or to any issue favored by some religious groups, such as alternatives views to teaching evolution.

Election Forum is run by Craig Huey, a South Bay-based businessman who owns marketing and advertising companies. In 2011, he ran as a Republican backed by the Tea Party movement to represent the 36th Congressional District but lost to Janice Hahn.

An effort to reach Huey for comment was unsuccessful.

Gutierrez is also a Republican and received Tea Party support in her 2014 run for state superintendent of public instruction, where she finished third but received close to a million votes.