The Democratic Party (finally) gets religion

[thatcrazycajun]

National Public Radio reports that around the nation, Democratic Party candidates are at long, long last starting to figure out how to talk to people of faith:
Democratic Party Embraces "Values" Debate
Personally, I don't like seeing either party's policy dictated or influenced by religion; I regard all organized religions as superstitious, primitive cults, including and especially the one I was raised in. (This has made for some, er...interesting discussions with my beloved Songbird, who still practices this faith.) And I'm a huge fan of the First Amendment, especially the Establishment Clause. But I do believe in spirituality (as opposed to religion; ask if you want the difference explained), and I accept that, for the foreseeable future, religious believers will make up the overwhelming majority of the electorate in this country, and their concerns must be addressed to some degree...and I even share some of those concerns. That said, it's nice to see that finally, finally the Dems are taking back some of the moral high ground they've ceded to conservative evangelicals for far too long.

Comments

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

The question is not whether religion dictates party policy, but whether party policyb is cmpatible with religion.

The Republican party has been enormously succesful at suppressing Democratic voting among people with strong religious Christian or Jewish feeling by portraying the Democratic party as ANTIreligious and religious values.

This is not merely about abortion, although that is a huge wedge issue. Or even about gay marriage. It is a broad impression in the faith community that even discussion of religious feeling in the Democratic party is shunned. Republicans have persuaded a large numbe of folks that if you are, say a progressive Catholic, and you say "Christ wants us to feed the poor and do good works, so we should support social programs for the poor," five militant athiests identifying themselves as Democrats will tell you that justifying social programs for the poor on the grounds of Christian faith is awful, Christianity has done more evil than any force in the world, and even thinking about religion while administering a government program is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

That won't turn a progressive into a Republican, but it will keep him or her from voting for the Dems. And it will sway a large number of undecided people in the middle who are devout Christians who believe fully in separation of Church and State to vote Republican, because they are persuaded that the Dems are ANTIreligious.

There is now an opportunity to win many of these "mainstream" religious voters back. As was demonstrated during the Terry Schiavo affair, there is a growing constituency of voters who consider themselves good Christians who are appalled by the Evangelical agenda and how the Republican party endorses it. But to persuade these folks that it is o.k. to vote for the Democratic party, people with strong positive feelings about their version of Christianity need to feel that the Democratic PArty is not antireligion and that its values are consistent with their religious values.

By this last, I again do not mean abortion and gay marriage. Many religiously devout people have strng views on the subject, but also think it is not particularly their business to make decisions for others. What I mean is that the Democrats must show that their values on social justice resonate with traditional ideas of social justice espoused by the Catholic Church and many mainstream Christian churches.

I am deeply religious. I am deeply progressive. Why shouldn't the Democratic party talk to me in m language? Why shouldn't I express my progressive ideas wth religious language?

Bluntly, it is high time for those who fear that any mention of religion in civic discourse is a slippery slope to theocracy need to get ver their discomfort, get a grip, and start being at least polite to fellow progressives who happen to be religious. If we accuse every religious democrat who speaks to religious people in language they understand of toadying to the religious right then we will continue to drive people who fundamentally agree with us away from us.