James E. Holman makes his living in the world of alternative newspapers. For 33 years, his irreverent and wildly successful weekly, the San Diego Reader, has needled the city's captains of commerce, government and society.
But Holman has also pursued a passion unusual among his brethren in the left-leaning alternative press: a quiet crusade against abortion.
This year, the strict Catholic from Coronado is tapping his sizable fortune to advance a November ballot measure that would make it harder for girls to terminate pregnancies in California. Proposition 73 would require doctors to notify a minor's parents at least 48 hours before performing an abortion. Teenagers facing a medical emergency, or obtaining permission from a judge, would be exempt.
Records show that Holman, 59, is by far the leading contributor to the cause, providing more than $1.1 million of the nearly $1.8 million reported by backers so far. His contributions have included loans, cash and nonmonetary donations, with much of the money used to pay for the gathering of signatures needed to qualify the measure for a vote.
"He's very passionate about the issue," said friend and fellow Proposition 73 supporter Albin Rhomberg, "and very committed to making this effort a success."
Holman did not return telephone calls from The Times. A campaign spokesman said he would not be granting interviews.
A father of seven, Holman has been described in some accounts as a recluse and ultraconservative ideologue. Friends say that portrait is off the mark.
Rather, they say, the lean, graying-at-the-temples publisher is a cerebral man who tilts libertarian but is defined mostly by his deep religious beliefs. He attends Mass daily and counts priests among his close friends. He once took an extended leave from his newspaper to work with a missionary group on Los Angeles' skid row.
Despite his substantial wealth, Holman takes the bus to work, eats sack lunches and lives modestly -- an anti-consumerist lifestyle his friends attribute to his faith. In addition to the Reader, he publishes four lay Catholic papers -- in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tijuana -- that routinely skewer bishops and others who stray from the official teachings of the church in Rome. The papers also reflect the Catholic doctrine that homosexual acts are sinful.
