December 28, 1987

LEAD: Over the centuries, Christian clerics have offered their blessings to everything from the hounds before the hunt to battleships going off to war. Why then should they withhold their blessing from a homosexual couple who have decided to lead a loving, monogamous relationship?

LEAD: Saudi Arabia accused Iran today of seeking to impose alien ideologies on fellow Moslem nations in the Arab world to the detriment of the Arab campaign against Israel.

LEAD: Behind the Palestinian riots of the last few weeks is a story about fathers and sons -Palestinian fathers and the sons over whom they may have lost control.

LEAD: THE ECONOMY Holiday sales disappointed retailers across the nation. Although results averaged about 3 percent more than last year, most merchants suffered declines in real terms. A telephone survey indicated that sales varied among types of stores, with those catering to the affluent showing the biggest rises.

LEAD: After almost two years as one of the Federal authorities' most wanted fugitives, former New Jersey State Senator David J. Friedland was snared last week by his own success as an operator of a chain of scuba diving shops on an island in the Indian Ocean, a Federal marshal said yesterday.