aking their cue from the role that black churches have played in past elections for African-American candidates, a group of Hispanic evangelical leaders announced yesterday that they were endorsing the Bronx borough president, Fernando Ferrer, for mayor of New York City.

"While we are proud that he is a Latino, that's not the reason why we are endorsing him today," said the Rev. Raymond Rivera, one of the 27 people who stood on the steps of City Hall to explain their support for Mr. Ferrer, one of four Democrats and two Republicans running for mayor. "We are here because he has transformed the Bronx."

Together, the pastors said, they represent about 350,000 New Yorkers — mostly immigrants from South and Central America who in the last 30 years have abandoned the Roman Catholic Church in favor of an array of Protestant denominations that fall under the evangelical banner.

Strengthened by that growth, evangelical religious leaders are beginning to play increasingly visible political roles in the city. They have even started to endorse candidates who espouse views contrary to that of their mostly conservative teachings from the pulpit.

"It is a reality that we oppose gay marriages and abortion and that all the candidates support those issues," said the Rev. Adolfo Carrión, a respected figure among Hispanic evangelists in New York and the father of the City Council member with the same name. "But there are other things that are important in life, like the education of our children, and we have to be pragmatic."

In the last mayoral campaign, Mr. Ferrer said he opposed certain forms of late-term abortion, calling them barbaric. Yesterday, Mr. Ferrer's spokesman, John Del Cecato, said that was an unfortunate comment for which Mr. Ferrer had apologized. Mr. Ferrer favors abortion rights, he said, and supports a state law that allows a woman to have a late-term abortion if her life or health is in danger.

Just last week, 80 Latino Pentecostal ministers, mainly from the Bronx, endorsed Mark Green, a Democrat and the city's public advocate, for mayor. The dueling endorsements come at a time when polls indicate that Mr. Ferrer has the overwhelming backing of Latino New Yorkers, with Mr. Green a distant second.

"The truth is that no matter what we do and say, Latinos are going to vote for Ferrer," said Mr. Rivera, who runs a pastoral center in the Bronx. In endorsing Mr. Ferrer, he said, "we've picked a winner."

Surrounded by an eclectic-looking group of religious leaders — including a pastor from the Lower East Side who wore a black leather vest, black jeans and gold hoop earrings — Mr. Ferrer pledged that if elected, members of the Latino clergy would have the same access to his administration that many Bronx religious leaders already have to his office as borough president. Mr. Ferrer said he had worked closely with religious leaders in the Bronx on issues of housing, education and relations with the Police Department.

Hermes Caraballo, a pastor who oversees church outreach programs in Mr. Ferrer's office, said the evangelical churches would help mobilize citywide support for Mr. Ferrer's candidacy just as the black churches did for former Mayor David N. Dinkins and, more recently, for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mr. Caraballo said Mr. Ferrer would have access to pulpits in several churches, holding forums in some of them to answer questions from voters. In addition, he said, many churches will hold voter registration drives in the neighborhoods they serve and provide transportation for their members to go to the polls on Election Day.

Carefully trying not to mix pulpit and politics, Mr. Caraballo said that Mr. Ferrer would speak before or after the services and that the voter registration drives would take place outside the churches, as people arrive for Sunday school and other weekly activities.

"The African-American churches have always done it," Mr. Caraballo said. "We are closely following their model."

Campaigning for re-election as New York mayor in 1993, Mr. Dinkins spent a great deal of time trying to convince black churchgoers that he would deliver for them on issues including health care and housing. Mrs. Clinton made it a campaign routine to visit predominantly black churches last year.

Mr. Caraballo said that at least one church, Love Gospel Assembly in the Bronx, had set a goal of registering 3,000 people to vote. In several churches, potential new members receive a voter registration form along with their membership application.

"The motto for us is that a good Christian is a good citizen," he said.

In the mayoral campaign yesterday, two of the other major Democratic candidates released policy positions. Mr. Green received a set of endorsements from nearly 50 Silicon Alley technology company executives at 55 Broad Street. Mr. Green promised to allocate more money toward making city services available online and expanding access to high-speed Internet connections.

Mr. Green also said he would endorse something Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has yet to publicly: spending city money on the Board of Education plan to supply every student with computer terminals that allow Internet access.

Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi released his housing platform in a speech at Cooper Union. He proposed spending $3.78 billion over five years to build or renovate 105,000 dwellings, including single-family homes, condominiums and rental apartments, for low- to middle-income residents. He also called for stronger tenant protections, including changing the Rent Guidelines Board's calculation of landlord costs.