Topeka ? A Washington-based organization is asking the federal Justice Department to investigate a Kansas group that is monitoring the political activities of churches and clergy in the Kansas City metropolitan area.

The Mainstream Coalition, based in Prairie Village, announced last month that it would send volunteers into area churches to see whether churches and their pastors were abiding by federal laws governing political activity by nonprofit institutions.

On Wednesday, the Christian Seniors Assn. announced it had sent a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, asking to have federal agents sent to the Kansas City area.

The group describes itself as the Christian alternative to AARP and puts its membership at about 100,000.

Executive Director James Lafferty said Mainstream’s activities represented harassment, creating “an aura of intimidation” designed to prevent clergy and churches from speaking out on political issues.

Lafferty compared the coalition’s activities to efforts by white supremacists during the 1950s and 1960s to intimidate black churches and clergy involved in the civil rights movement.

But Caroline McKnight, Mainstream’s executive director, called the association’s comments “just silly” and said her group simply wanted to make sure churches and pastors followed federal law.