There is no room for the aggression of conversionists in a liberal movement.

This reminds me a lot of a former post in which you made the (correct, I think) point that liberals might superficially have a lot in common with Libertarians, but at the end of the day Libertarians won't budge on tax cuts, and so it's kind of pointless to sing kumbaya about legalized pot when they'll never vote on it anyway.

I think that the evangelical community (or at least the one that we talk about in politics) likewise sees abortion and gay sex as an unqualified dealbreaker. The evangelicals who do care more about poverty and the environment mostly vote Democrat anyway, and it doesn't seem super likely that there is a lot of wiggle room here.

That being said, doing some basic outreach (and I mean really basic) might provide enough social cover to let some evangelicals that aren't all about the dealbreakers explain to their fellow churchgoers why they supported a Democrat without being totally out in the woods, which could help in a few specific circumstances. So I guess a little bit of work might get a little bit of votes, but a lot of work is probably also going to get a little bit of votes.

Poor Kevin expends great effort in pandering to his lunatic and hate-filled followers. But sometimes his real nature accidentally shows through.

Somehow, I don't think democratic cluelessness with respect to religion is the democrats' biggest religious problem at this time.

Isn't it strange that Kevin has not posted on Obama and Reverend Wright? I think the democrats are about to nominate a guy who likely will be annilated with 527 ads based on Wright, probably has no chance to win Ohio or Pennsylvania, and may be vulnerable to a landslide loss. Clinton strangely seems not to be attempting to use the problem (yet), but it also might be her ticket to the nomination and, if the economy tanks, she might yet be president.

Are you offering Amy up as sacrificial lamb to bring the Obamabots and Clintonistas back together?

I heart holy rollers and Papists as long as they don't try to force their dogma on others.

Faith-based initiatives and packing the Supreme Court with Catholics seem to me contrary to American principles of freedom of religion and invite the kind of old European religious conflicts that the Founding Fathers hoped to avoid by forbidding state establishment of religion. Even now Protestant Amazon women and pregnant teenage sluts are joining militia and paramilitary groups as the battle lines are drawn.

no

Haven't read the book yet, but can you tell me which evangelicals we are supposed to court? Is it the white, America-loving, brown-people-hating variety, or the black, America-hating, white-people-hating variety?

Republican strategists like Karl Rove (who merely picked up where his mentors Segretti and Atwater left off) long ago figured out that the evanglical Christian base was ripe for their picking.

The irony is that these men, who most strongly advocated the GOP's pandering to the evangelical Christians, are atheists. Although, maybe that made them more objective about this organizing principle:

Unifying Evangelical Christians is like herding sheep.
Unifying the "conservative" GOP base is like herding cattle.
Unifying Democrats is like herding cats.

Taking that a step further, unifying libertarian-minded voters is more like herding scalded cats, which helps explain their lack of success.

There are several things at work here.

First, Republican "success" in courting religious voters owes more to pandering and manipulation than sincerity of faith. For example, Karl Rove doesn't believe in God but was nevertheless successful in generating 4 million new voters in 2004 by getting 'gay marriage' onto the ballots in states where conservative/evangelical turnout would otherwise have been too low to reelect Bush.

Republicans were also successful in organizing churches to attack John Kerry over abortion, gay rights, global warming and his comparative opposition to the war in Iraq.

When you hear Republican Christians using talking points that sound like they were coined by Exxon lobbyists or lynch mobs, you have to wonder about the sincerity and genuineness of the faith these people are professing.

Second, just because Liberals aren't as craven or successful when it comes to pandering to religious voters doesn't mean they are any more or less cynical or sincere about religion as Republicans.

You will find that the percentages of Democrats and Republicans who consider themselves Christians are about identical.

Third, if you make an honest and sincere comparison of the political platforms and issues to the teachings of Jesus Christ, it's fairly clear Jesus would not be a Republican. The Republican party favors the wealthy (cf. camel, eye of a needle), opposes welfare programs (we will be judged by how we treat the least among us), the death penalty, war, opposed to protecting the environment, opposed to efforts to stop global warming, etc.

Or to dumb down the point: Dick Cheney is going to hell as are any other Christians whose understanding of the faith is so perverted that they cannot recognize this.

Fourth, this so-called religious divide among the parties is exaggerated by the way it is framed. Watching the MSM you almost get the impression that "Evangelicals" who lean heavily towards the GOP are the only Christians in the country who vote.

Again, the percentages of Democrats and Republicans who self-identify as "Christians" is about the same. So why are Republicans seen as the party of God?

Part of the difference is simply a bogus, self-serving stereotype that has been manufactured and perpetuated by Republicans.

The perceived difference is also partly an extension or reflection of the cultural divide between Red States and Blue States.

Republicans and Evangelicals would have you believe that they are better Christians and better, more moral and more independent citizens than people in Blue States.

And yet statistically such morality metrics as divorce rates, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse are higher - often much higher - in Red States than Blue States. Red States also tend to take in more federal money than they pay out in taxes (they are literally the welfare states their citizens so despise), are less economically productive, less educated, and less tolerant than Blue States.

If you can't sort out that Jesus would be more in favor of helping the poor, ending the war, protecting the environment and preventing global warming, doing away with the death penalty, being tolerant and loving of your fellow citizens - including minorities like immigrants, gays, and liberals - then you're not a Christian by any meaningful and accurate description of the term (and yes, if hell actually exists, that's exactly where your ignorant and spiteful soul will be spending the rest of eternity).

I don't think the civility or lack thereof in a blog's comment threads should be taken as evidence of ANYTHING. When 100 people comment, there is always going to be a few that are riled up about something. You can find a few people that express contempt for Evangelicals, for Conservatives, for Jews, for the Masons and the Tri-lats, Dianetics, immigrants, blacks, asians, whatever.

So how are Christians made to feel uncomfortable in our society, except for comment threads on blogs? On mainstream television shows? Try taking that up with Fox, or good old Middle America (which watches crap tv in droves).

The shit they believe in is irrelevant to our democracy and political system. If they want to let their faith guide their decisions, fine, no one's stopping them. Religion should be mostly OUT of government, for reasons we all agree with. To the extent that they would like to incorporate religion into our political system, it is almost entirely antithetical to "our" liberal Democratic beliefs.

So, they're not talking about formalized resistance to their religious beliefs, because it doesn't exist, or to the extent that it does, it is for PERFECTLY VALID reasons. Which we won't compromise on.

And are there professional concern trolls on the conservative side writing articles that say that if they toned down the anti-Mexican rhetoric they might really pull in some Hispanic votes? Maybe, but the conservatives ran the numbers and decided that more votes are gained (among whites) by scapegoating Mexicans than are gained by dialing it down - because most of the Hispanics that might vote Conservative already do, and the ones that don't, won't. They might lose some swing votes, but GAIN much more.

And importantly, law and order, anti-immigration, America-for-Americans is kind of a core belief with them, that they'd rather not compromise.

Does it all come down to being made to feel uncomfortable? Oh well. They make me uncomfortable too.

There are very few of them anyway - true believers that is. And the ones that might swing over to Democratic candidates are a slimmer group still.

How do they vote on the war? They're pro-war, against Muslims. They are pro-Israel. How do they vote on capital punishment? They're for it. How do they vote on progressive taxation? They're against it. Whatever.

Augustus - nice post.

re: "You will find that the percentages of Democrats and Republicans who consider themselves Christians are about identical. ...the percentages of Democrats and Republicans who self-identify as "Christians" is about the same."

I would suggest that the Republican party has just about managed to lock up the most gullible and fervent (though not necessarily devout) segment of those who self-identify as "Christians." Those in this segment are overwhelmingly represented in the congregations of "mega-churches" headed by televangelists.

Objective people who have had the opportunity to experienced first-hand what these churches are about have noticed that the nature of the "experience" (some would say, "entertainment") they provide and their business model has more in common with those of famous secular motivational speakers (like Tony Robbins).

These people have personality traits that the televangelists (and the political strategists) take advantage of: not only are they easy to fool, they're also easy to motivate into taking action, such as donating money, buying a product, or voting for a candidate.

Similarly, that's also one (but by no means the only) reason why shows like Rush Limbaugh's are more financially successful that similar efforts by the liberal side: a more gullible audience more willing to make impulse purchases is more rewarding to the advertisers. It doesn't matter how good the show if the audience doesn't respond to the advertisers' pitches.

I live in the netherlands. I am an athiest. My personal worldview is respected over here and thus I respect theirs in return.

I help fundraise for the restauration of the catholic church in my place of residence. I'm a member of the CDA, the Cristian Democratic coalition party. A centrist party formed on religious ideals. I don't have any problems with religion at all.

And they don't have a problem with me. They see me and all athiest as moral. I would not be at a disadvantage electorally. They do argue for some reform based on the bible but for the most part they also recognice that their arguments are invalid if you don't believe.

It's a two way street. They respect me, I respect them.

But over in the USA it is different. I'm constently made to defend my views, painted as immoral, disagreeable, etc merely for not being a believer.

The democratic party has tried numerous times to court believers. With presidental candidates like Carter and Clinton who were religious and certainly not shy about it. We do include pro-lifers in our party. We give them leadership posts.

At one point I'm wondering, is it really us? or is it just them?. And I don't like putting it terms of us/them. certainly because I know numerous highly religious Democratic voters that aren't like that, don't hold my views against me, vote democrat and don't complain that I or the party are anti-religious.

I simply wonder if those that complain about the party, regular democrats, athiest, or me as being anti-religious will ever by satisfied in the long run if the party also keeps people like me on the same level as them...

I really do fear that as long as my views are taken just as serious as theirs, they won't.

As Sinclair Lewis said, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers the individual subordinate to the interests of the state , party or society as a whole. Fascists seek to forge a type of national unity, usually based on (but not limited to) ethnic ,cultural ,racial ,religious attributes. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: patriotism ,nationalism ,statism ,socialization ,militarism ,totalitarianism ,anti-communism ,corporatism ,populism ,collectivism ,autocracy and opposition to political and economic liberalism

Fascism is typified by totalitarian attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic, by way of a strong, single-party government for enacting laws and a strong, sometimes brutal militia or police force for enforcing them. [18] Fascism exalts the nation ,state , or group of people as superior to the individuals composing it. Fascism uses explicit populist rhetoric; calls for a heroic mass effort to restore past greatness; and demands loyalty to a single leader, leading to a cult of personality and unquestioned obedience to orders

Former Columbia University Professor Robert O. Paxton;
Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion....a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; fear of foreign `contamination."

I'm not remotely hostile to religion. People are welcome to believe all of the pea-brained, stupid, degraded, unbelievable, mythical, made-up, created by Essene cultists and a guy with a Jesus complex named Jesus (or was he just a charlatan, a thief, a fornicator?) crap they want to.

Just don't rub my nose in all of your cultist nonsense.

Everything in the world, every fact, every facet of science, every human experience that is not psychotic or hallucinatory, denies that there is a god or a pantheon of god or some magical "force" or "being." So, yes, I will make you learn science and evolution and biology, etc., etc., in schools.

But other than that, go to your churches, your temples, your forest clearings, your secret cult locales. You can go there and quack like a duck all Sunday or all Saturday or all whatever day long. (Just don't sacrifice cats or other creatures and stop handling snakes--it's probably not good for them and you could get bitten.)

So don't you snarl in my face "Yer goin' to hay-ull" and all the rest of your mumbo-jumbo.

How can anyone seriously be a Christian and a Repuplican at the same time?

Who said that you should give all your money to the poor and follow him?

Who said that when you feed a person without food that you are feeding him?

Who said you should cut the capital gains tax?

Look, even Huckabee found out this year that you can't be both a good Christian and a good Republican. Huckabee had said that the children of illegal immigrants were also God's children. Unfortunately, that position conflicted with the Republican party platform. So Huckabee changed his tune and basically said that those children are not the children of God.

Nope, no hostility here!

Please be aware that blog commenters aren't necessarily the same people who are running the party.

Sullivan referred in her recent Time article to the Dems' traditional "fight or flight" response to religion. False, false, false. She's a Joe Lieberman, or, if she doesn't have that much intellectual firepower, a Ron Silver.

I don't care whether she's professing concern or on the attack. She says false, damaging things. That is the alpha and omega of her schtick. So she should stop.

This article just completely ignores human nature.

A guy is born into a non-religious household. He only has two points of contact with Christianity:

1. When flipping through TV channels, he sees guys in Christian robes advocating conservatism, a political philosophy he finds indefensible and cruel.

2. From time to time, he reads in the paper about a new law or bill that hurts people, which is being backed and funded by the Christian movement.

So you're asking this guy not to feel hostility to Christianity. Exactly how is he supposed to do that?

if liberals can win more of them by toning down the sarcasm and taking the religious community a little more seriously, is that too much to ask?

Yes, it is. Faith (or lack thereof) should be a personal matter. We don't need more god-bothering from either the campaign stump or the presidential podium.

First, you're an Obama supporter Kevin and several articles have been written of late about the religious overtones permeating his campaign - so as far as you Obama fanatics are concerned, whether you realize it or not, you've already crossed the 'I found Christ' line. Second, religion is an absurdity but one that unfortunately Americans just can't seem to do without - like fast food - but you choose to overtly embrace this absurdity and lo! beware: Republicans have been doing this idiotic dance a lot longer than you and they still have trouble with the steps [Huckabee anyone? Imagine how dangerous a person he'd be if he wasn't such an oaf?]. You can no more sort of find religion than you can sort of get pregnant - God's kind of a prick that way - and paradoxically any deal you make with him is a deal with the devil. But like I said, you support Obama, you've already decided to make that deal.

"1. When flipping through TV channels, he sees guys in Christian robes advocating conservatism, a political philosophy he finds indefensible and cruel. 2. From time to time, he reads in the paper about a new law or bill that hurts people, which is being backed and funded by the Christian movement."

Well, he does at least have a duty to STFU and inform himself about religion before becoming a hater, esp. if he backs an in-your-face religious candidate like Obama.

"People are welcome to believe all of the pea-brained, stupid, degraded, unbelievable, mythical, made-up, created by Essene cultists..."

And if we outlined your ideology/world-view we'd find just as many unverified general beliefs, value commitments and leaps of faith as are in the average religious person's beliefs.

Regarding the conservative evangelicals: there's no point trying to fit them into any big tent. The best we can hope for there is that they'll hate everyone enough to stop voting.

I would be interested in Amy's take on the Guttmacher/WHO study printed in the Lancet last fall. There were a number of striking conclusions in this piece and other studies:

1. Countries with the most liberal social policies (good health care, available birth control, sex ed, etc) have the lowest abortion rates.

2. Making abortion illegal does not stop abortions, but makes them riskier for the woman and girls who seek them out in desperation. Countries where it is illegal have higher abortion rates than the socially progressive countries.

3. Absinance-only programs (favored by many "pro-life" advocates) do not work, and lead to higher rates of teen pregnancies and STD's.

Right-wing evangelicals do lots of talking about how sacred a fetus is, but over the years none of them (start with Fallwell, then work your way through Dobson, Robertson, Hagee, etc.) have ever worked with Democrats in bring pre-natal health care to poor women.

I think most of the "pro life" movement is a thinly disguised "anti women's rights" movement.

What it all comes down to is that bigotry of any sort is unacceptable for me, especially masquerading as Christianity.

As a kid I was raised as a Catholic in Massashusetts, in the backbone of the Democratic party. In those days, Catholics voted for Democrats because of Christ's example of serving the poor, the needy, etc. Catholics had a stricter moral code (no divorce or pre-marital sex, etc) than the general society, but that was between them and God, not a matter of secular law.

But Evangelicals seem to turn this thinking on its head - personal morality is a matter of law, and they ignore the fact that Christ's whole life was for serving others seems to be lost on most evangelicals. It's like their bibles are missing all of Matthew.

This is all well and good for Karl Rove to go after these votes, because he doesn't give a rat's ass about any actual principals or moral values. So what if women are worse off because of bitterly hostile social programs.

But if you actually care about social well-being, then all of the bigotry, misogny, homophobia is too much to swallow.

What I find interesting is tht no one is discussing religious tolerance except the atheist from the Netherlands.

And some people forget that the dogma practiced by some Christianists is not the same as what true Christians would practice.

In fact, I consistently see a lot of confusion in people's minds between religious teachings and the behavior of self-proclaimed followers. S. I. Hayakawa commented on this when he mentioned the difference between an ideal (say the Boy Scout Oath) and how people (say Boy Scouts) actually behave. You can't condemn the Boy Scout Oath because a group of Boy Scouts are basically louts. You can say these Boy Scouts are louts. You can't even say all Boy Scouts are louts, therefor the Boy Scout Oath is fake. And the same is true of religion. Many religionists are louts and horrible and so forth. But so are many atheists! (voir Karl Rove). Should I condemn all atheists as greedy selfish monsters because Karl Rove is one? Or Lenin was one? Or ...or...

Anyhow, a lot of you folks can't think your way out of a paper bag, let alone reason your way to atheism or religious belief.

I'm a full-on atheist and mechanical reductionist, but I'm practical about religion. Anything that teaches people not to lie, steal, and kill, so they don't have to figure out for themselves that all ethics are conventions, is okay by me. If they want to think they shouldn't take my wallet because God will punish them, let them have their superstition, and I'll even make some accommodations for them in public places. Let them have their creche on the courthouse lawn, as long as the Wiccans can celebrate solstice there, too. I feel about religions as Madison felt about factions in Federalist 10: Let them all fight it out, so no one religion gets too much power.

Nonetheless, although we can welcome religious people into the Democratic party, I don't think we can compromise on gay rights or abortion rights. This will lose us the Taliban wing of American Protestantism, but so be it.

"Right-wing evangelicals do lots of talking about how sacred a fetus is, but over the years..."

...rarely ever express a fervent belief that a fetus is sacred if it happens to have been born and grown up in a country in which the U.S. intervenes militarily.

In short:

U.S. fetus = sacred; early medical termination by owner of host womb is unacceptable under any circumstances

Foreign fetus (or child, or adult) = not sacred; early violent termination is unfortunate but acceptable collateral damage if carried out in accordance with U.S.-decreed rules of engagement

What is starting to worry me even more than the Dobson/Robertson crowd is the Pope and the Catholic bishops. They seem determined to go down the scorched-earth path of declaring it sinful to support any candidate who does not favor outlawing abortion. The implications of this are staggering. The logical extension of this argument is that it is sinful to support any candidate who does not plan to pass laws against any behavior that the Church considers sinful. Does a politician need to push for passing laws against contraception? - it is also considered a mortal sin. What about adultery? Or failing to attend Mass on Sunday?

I also note that the bishops don't seen to take this attitude against supporters of the death penalty, even though the Catholic Church claims to oppose it. I can only conclude that the Church is basically telling its flock that it is sinful to vote for Democrats and is only holy to vote for Republicans.

I suspect that the Church's anti-Kerry campaign in 2004 might have swung enough votes to throw the election to Bush. This is hard to forgive.

If Rick Warren was just as, um, "accomplished," but Buddhist rather than Christian, would anyone outside of Hollywood really be expected to know who the hell he is?

Is Ignorance really akin to hostility?

Failure to help promote one religion over others is neither sarcasm nor hostility. Recognition that there are more than one or two kinds of faith in the world isn't foolish.
Cozying up to one or two kinds of faith is just what gives sanction to ignoring or belittling the others, thus increasing the self-importance of the "selected" faiths. And limiting discourse to the same old game of pander and put-down.

Stanley Fish's paradox of liberalism comes to mind here: liberals are supposed to be tolerant, but end up being tolerant of the intolerant as a result. Where does one draw the line?

The right-wing insistence that bothers me the most is that America is inherently (and was historically) a Christian country, and that therefore a sort of Christian tyranny-of-the-majority is the ideal state. This view seems to me both factually wrong and antithetical to the Bill of Rights, yet you see it blithely assumed by all sorts of people. Secularism is a great invention because it stops believers from persecuting one another; but many (not all!) on the religious right are anti-secularists. I think liberals have to promote secularism in politics and the public sphere as a worthy ideal, with an eye to how secularism promotes cooperation among all groups of believers and nonbelievers.

So, Religious Pandering II, Democrat Bugaloo? Makes political sense, I suppose, but then politics does tend to suck.
Hope that wasn't too uncivil...

That's right - bring the concern troll back. You should encourage her to make more idiotic statements about something she knows absolutely nothing about too - say.... basketball.

To all who point out that the Christ of the bible did not give a pass to the rich and poswerful, and instead identified with the weak and powerless: You are right.

To all who point out that the Republican Party is the tool of the rich and powerful: You are right.

You won't get far with social conservatives pointing this out, however. They are viscerally inflamed by social decline, as evident (to them) by abortion, sex in movies, pre-marital sex, divorce, unwed mothers, porn, rap music, alternative action, and too many brown people with accents. The behind-the-scenes machinations of the rich are abstract in comparison.

These people do not like the social changes of the past fifty years. They will admit that discrimination against women and blacks is wrong, and they we have better racial relations, but that admission is without passion.

Other than race these people see a society in decline, and they will back conservatives who want to turn back the clock.

Hence the depth of the distrust of the Democrat Party by these folks. Democrats pooh pooh their concerns and imply lurking racism. Democrats are perceived as not much concerned with dirty movies or pop culture or single parents.

The Democratic Party cannot get many voters who are Social Conservatives. Can't be done. However, Democrats can make progress at the margins, among small cap social conservatives who have wider concerns. Some of these tactics are not very progressive, but I lay them out for your delectation because they will work:

1. Oppose immigration. Technically you only oppose illegal immigration out of respect for the law, but really you are reassuring people that there are just too many foreigners around and we need to close the door a bit.

2. Oppose NAFTA and other free trade agreements. This is a way to let people know you think too many Americans jobs are being taken away by foreigners and you don't like it.

3. Make speeches decrying violent song lyrics, swearing and sex on TV, and port. Always couch these as protecting children. This let's people know you don't like permissiveness, but you aren't going to take away adult access to fun stuff like porn or uncut DVDs.

4. Express discomfort with affirmative action. Give speeches reluctantly acknowledging it has given some wothy people a lef up, but always mention the cost in unfairly disadvantaging others. Always present it as something which needs to be phased out eventually, hinting perhaps sooner rather than later.

5. Push health care, always in terms of providing security to working families.

6. Push tuition assistance for college education.

7. Abortion is a wrong that we can't make outright illegal. (Divides the country, rape & incest, etc.)

8. (Most important) Put up overtly religious candidates. (Obvious nod to Obama). For being a church-going Methodist Hillary has under-played her religiousity.

9. Rail against the cost of the war, in money and lives. Mention $200 billion per year over and over. Do not get moralistic. Do not mention Iraqi lives. Money money money. People don't care enough about Iraq to pay for it, but they viscerally understand that Bush wanted to kick some Arab butt because they shared the emotion. Money is the vector to emphasize that sometimes we need cool judgment. People now regret acting on revenge because it has proven so expensive, but they have not repented the emotion itself.

I know, a lot of bitter pills to swallow, but they work in terms of winning elections. Witness Bill Clinton.

Overall both HRC & BHO are pretty good at appealing to small cap social conservatives. BHO wins on points with his religiousity, upstanding demeanor, and lack of past sleaze, but he is black, and that ain't good with these voters. HRC get points for standing by her man as a wronged wife, and she projects anger and frustration in a way that, strangely, resonates. She comes across as middle-class mid-western and that is good. Her husband cut welfare. She has lost the uppity blacks, and to these voters that makes her more attractive.

Please don't attack me personally. These are not my beliefs; they are just how I see the lay of the land.

I am not a know it all, but I do know that if you’re a politician you’re a whore that is just how it is. A politician would sale his soul for the nod. What scares me about adding in old time religion or the JESUS factor into the MSM Dem image is that the whores will start whoring out right and be made to look as hypocritical as most of the GOP Reps do now.

Amy is a former editor at the Washington Monthly, so she's well known to many of you for her previous guest blogging here. And if you'll excuse an understatement, many of you have been skeptical of her case. Democrats aren't hostile to religion, is the usual rejoinder ? often offered right before a series of cavalier references to believers in bearded guys in the sky or the flying spaghetti monster. Nope, no hostility here!

This is one of the most idiotic things Drum has ever written.

I guess I want to understand why hostility to religion is a bad thing. Supposedly I'm supposed to be hostile to imperialism even though it's quite arguable that some imperiliast regimes were beneficial (for someone). Personally, I don't all that much that good about religion. It's hardly a force for unmitigated good. So why should I be friendly to religion? Because Amy Sullivan wants me to? So I can win elections

Let's be honest here, the way I'll support religionists and their agenda is the same way the republicans support them. I'll pretend I care about their feelings, their petty bigotries and their ideals then, once I have a candidate in office, that candidate will ignore them completely.

Hows that for support?

Let me suggest something. If religionists want to be recognized and included, why don't they get their own house in order and, for a change, look the way republicans have used them like disposable lighters for the last three decades. Then perhaps they'll see that there is another political option but it requires them to act civilized and to quit pretending most of us want to enact their three millennia old tribal customs into law.

Oh, and the whole rick warren thing? Frankly, I'm glad McAuliffe didn't recognize him. It might be the first good thing I've heard about McAuliffe in months, maybe years. Enough of this pandering to vacuous evangelicals (of which warren is an excellent example.

does anyone take scientology seriously?

why should i take the mumbo jumbo that has an older pedigree seriously?

do you respect holocaust deniers? climate change deniers? iraq is fantastic believers?

people that believe this any of the various fairy tales dont deserve respect. these fairy tales are killing us figuratively if not literally.

Oh boy, another series of easily-debunked, sanctimonious lectures with sub-anecdotal proofs from Amy Sullivan. Just like Halley's Comet in its regularity, although I wish the interval was about the same as our icy harbinger of doom.

Remarkably cute ass, but the sci-fi fan in me makes me want to scream out a warning about that golden torus. It's either a razor sharp death aerobie or the inception of a transporter beam that'll place that donkey in the cold of outer space.

"and if liberals can win more of them by toning down the sarcasm and taking the religious community a little more seriously, is that too much to ask?"

I'll tone down the sarcasm once they tone down the holier than thou/belief trumps facts attitude. If they wish to be taken seriously then they need to start thinking (and acting) seriously about practical real life solutions to the problems we face--many evangelical types have in fact done this, and it is very good to see, and once more of them start following this lead then I will reduce my sarcasm even more.

Our progressive goals for society have much in common with those of many Evangelicals. Calls for social justice are alive and well in some churches, both evangelical and not. Consider Jim Wallace, consider the sanctuary movement. We ought to welcome all who, regardless of how they arrive there, support progressive values. Some of the comments I read here are exactly what we need to avoid. Less anger please, less superiority please, and more cooperation.

Yes, religion is too often used to confirm people in their prejudices and fears. Why can't we also see that it can give people the courage and reason to rise above them?

I have a hard time getting excited about an external or top-down approach here. What has to happen is for religious liberals to stand-up and be counted. And this is going to happen with or without Amy because there is a backlash against the attempts of religious conservatives and GWB to define the intersection of religion and politics. They're going to stand up because they care about the war, poverty, environment, and human rights.

So set the religious pandering dial to 11 or set it to 1, the democratic party is going to do well regardless.

Democrats can't win for losing on this issue, though, can they? When a leading Democratic candidate for president talks about his faith, his preacher's sermons are picked apart, soundbites are removed from their religious, social and cultural context, and it's all trotted out for public critique by people with a political agenda.

Seems the the only "acceptable" religious belief is the right-wing evangelical Christian variety. The media knows what that is, right? It's what they've been pushing as the "face of American Christianity" for the past 20 years.

Any faith leader pushing a social justice agenda that decries war and poverty immediately puts our nation's power establishment at risk, and those people must be taken down.

Gee, sound awfully familiar, doesn't it? What a perfect topic for debate during Holy Week.

as several other people have done, i want to say that the answer to kevin's question about whether a discussion of amy sullivan can take place in a fairly civil way is no, so i won't be participating.

i'm sure she's a swell individual and a credit to her family but she's the michael o'hanlon of her chosen niche, spewing idiocies because there's a market receptive to them, not because they actually make any sense whatsoever.

Since this post seems to be a magnet for the insanely shrill, I'll speak up for the less-shrill onlookers: yes, the Democrats need to get a lot smarter about how they interact with the evangelical community, and yes I'm looking forward to Amy's posts. That's all.

. . . I should say "as far as I know". . . None of the candidates brought up the flying spaghetti monster, did they?

My general impression is that Hillary and Barack are significantly more religious than John McCain. It'll be interesting to see how the media portrays them.

Ooga. Ooga Booga! Dangerous Delusion! Ooga Booga?

Martin Luther King, Jr. said much more incendiary things than the Rev. Wright has. Willful ignorance of history and pearl clutching are a deadly combination.

http://tispaquin.blogspot.com

WHAT MEDIA IS NOT REPORTING: RE: TRINITY CHURCH!

Rev. Thomas (Pastor of Mainly White Congreation of UCC) denounces e-mail smear campaign against UCC’s largest congregation - Written by J. Bennett Guess, Jan. 11, 2008

Obama, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, has been a member of Trinity UCC for 20 years." "Trinity UCC is rooted in and proud of its Afrocentric heritage," Thomas said. "This is no different than the hundreds of UCC churches from the German Evangelical and Reformed stream that continue to own and celebrate their German heritage, insisting on annual sausage and sauerkraut dinners and singing Stille Nacht on Christmas Eve. ." While Trinity UCC is predominately African American, it does include and welcome non-Black members. The Rev. Jane Fisler-Hoffman, Illinois Conference Minister, who is white, has been a member of the congregation for years.

"Trinity is a destination church for many members of the UCC, a multi-racial, multi-cultural denomination that is largely Caucasian," Thomas pointed out. "When in Chicago, many UCC members flock to Trinity to share in and learn from its vibrant ministries, dynamic worship and justice-minded membership. Contrary to the claims made in these hateful emails, UCC members know Trinity to be one of the most welcoming, hospitable and generous congregations in our denomination." [...]

Rev. Steve] Gray, a member of First Congregational UCC in Indianapolis (mainly caucasian), has worshiped several times at Trinity UCC and is most impressed by the overflowing sense of welcome it extends to visitors. "When you're Euro-American, (White) the people [at Trinity UCC] are so exceedingly gracious, warm and welcoming. They hug you and say, 'Welcome to our church!'"

This ramped-up smear campaign against the UCC's largest congregation and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's home church — Trinity UCC in Chicago — has raised the ire of the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president, who called the e-mail-driven claims "absurd, mean-spirited and politically motivated."

The Main Stream Media has been filled with images and video of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial statements for the past four days, 24/7, which Obama has strongly condemned. My concern, however, relates to equal time. When Senator Obama, who, after all , is actually the Candidate, gave a speech in Indiana, addressing his faith, diversity, and unity, and Invoking Robert Kennedy, it has gotten such a tiny percentage of coverage in comparison to Rev. Wright's controversial statements shown every hour in the hour. The main stream media has asked the questions how is Obama to deal with this controversy and when he does they give very little air time to his Answer, which he spells out beautifully in this Indiana Speech. This is just not Right.

Here is the link to the transcript/video of Obama's speech. Let's urge our friends in the blogosphere, and in every level of media, to Air this and to tell the whole picture, not just a part of it, regarding The Trinity Church which Obama belongs to.

It's the same old problem the "liberal elite" have had for many years---decades even. They are elitists who look down their noses at those who don't agree with them. Limousine liberals are difficult to partner with in coalitions because of this and people have a bad reaction to being treated as inferior and not quite as smart as those of us in the know. This elitism has been a source of problems for Democrats for a long time. It could easily be fixed. Limo Liberals simply need to show some respect for other Democrats or constituencies that ought to be voting Democratic. That's all. You don't have to agree with em and you don't even have to like em. Just show some respect. Then there's a basis for coalition. If you treat others like servants (and servants you don't like or respect very much), they tend to resent it and to reflexively oppose the things you favor just to spite ya. That's the problem in a nutshell.

Democrats aren't hostile to religion, is the usual rejoinder — often offered right before a series of cavalier references to believers in bearded guys in the sky or the flying spaghetti monster. Nope, no hostility here!

I wouldn't classify the attitude here as one of hostility as much as it is one of dismissiveness but whatever. More importantly, trying to make this argument about what is said in your blog completely misses the point and I think you know it. The point is that we are not the Democratic Party. Our attitudes are not representative of the attitude of Democratic politicians toward religion which is never exactly disrespectful and is often pandering. I don't know if she does so in the book but on this blog she has made the claim that Democrats are hostile but has never, ever offered any actual proof of such hostility. This is, to say the least, quite annoying to me.

Now it sounds as if what she is arguing in the book is less about hostility and more about, as you say, cluelessness. I suppose there might be more of an argument there although my feeling is that basically staying out of religion ought to be the best policy for a politician. I guess apparently many religious people don't feel the same. Fair enough, I guess.

The religious left gets co-opted by complexity. That is, they might like to make bright-line moral distinctions but reality continually interferes. There are a million shades of gray shrouding God's rainbow. So, instead of moralizing firebrands, we get PBS fundraisers or Unitarians.

Liberalism struggles with those whose epistemologies are black-and-white. The siren song of purity intoxicates many people but should it intoxicate us? We know too much, and possibly, feel too deeply. Religion is a great vehicle for oversimplification because people want to escape modernity's complexity. If the last seven years have taught us anything, it's that religious escapism can have dire consequences. Belief keeps the tigers of the night at bay but it doesn't reason particularly well.

Respect is a two-way street. And certainly when you've got people telling you that if you don't get on board with their beliefs you're going to HAY-UUUL, that is not respect. I've been hearing that crap line since I was seven, when I was first informed on the school playground by a boy in my class that "my deddy says if yer not a Baptist, yer goin' to HAY-UUUL!" To my credit, even at age 7 I knew he was full of it and his comment inspired in me no desire to become a Baptist, but in fact the opposite - to stay as far as possible away from the Baptists.

I get really tired of hearing all this poor put-upon "people of faith" nonsense. To hear these Christian martyrs tell it, vocal disagreement with their beliefs, or even exposure to other beliefs, is the equivalent of throwing them to the lions. They'd have you believe that they are such a persecuted minority that none of their own can be elected to office without hiding his beliefs from public view, when in fact we all know exactly the opposite to be the case - non-believers, if they wish to hold office, have to lie and pretend to believe; otherwise they will lose in 99% of all cases thanks to not professing to believe the unprovable.

I'm sick to death of being lectured about how other people's unprovable beliefs somehow prove they are good people - or at least somehow better people, morally, than people who do not indulge in holding unprovable beliefs. Uh, how is that, pray tell?

I'm sick of knowing more and understanding better what their faith is supposed to be about than they do. I'm sick of the lying about how when they trash other people (and homosexuals seem to be their favorite target) they're not really trashing those people; they love those people even as they deride them in the most foul terms - they just "hate the sin". Meanwhile, all the other sins - the ones they themselves engage in - seem to fly under the radar and go unmentioned.

And most of all, I'm fed up with being told that I have to accomodate them when they have no inclination to extend to me - or anyone else - the same courtesy. After all, they're starting from the standpoint that they are right and everyone else who believes otherwise is wrong so...their beliefs don't really have any room for accomodating anyone else in the way they constantly scold us that we should accomodate them. I don't show up at their door uninvited, literally, to push my views on them on their day off. And I don't go out of my way or make any effort to offend them, though they seem to find ample reasons to take offense regardless, and certainly do not return the favor, instead cloaking their bigotry and small-mindedness in self-righteousness and claims that they are only speaking for God.

So tell me, how again are we supposed to "reach out" to these people and win them over, when by their own admission, the only thing that will satisfy them is for all of us who believe differently to capitulate and stipulate to the "truth" of their unprovable beliefs and the falsity of our own?

Seriously, at some point you have to ask why Sullivan seems so comfortable playing a fool's game.

Persistent optimist that I am, I hope we can chat about this stuff over the next few days in a fairly civil way. We can do that for one short week, can't we?

Provided no one says anything bad to me, I will blog with moderation here, sir.

But let me just explain something to you all--the only religion we shall have in this new century is the religion of money.

Almighty dollar is king, and you should learn to worship at his altar. He is suffering right now, and he needs your prayers to recover. I highly doubt whether a few dozen filthy liberals could pray for something other than that they don't get busted by The Man for having a bag of weed in the waistband of their underwear, but there it is.

From the review of the book:

"The simple truth Democrats need to grasp is that for many Americans, religion, as Sullivan rightly notes, is "a proxy for a general moral worldview." Republicans have long understood this fact of political life, and have tailored their campaigns accordingly. "Talking about faith—or, broadly, about the values that underlie issues," Sullivan writes, "gives voters insight into what motivates the men and women who ask for their support." Consequently, it is usually a mistake for Democrats to emphasize what they plan to do, rather than what they believe in."

I can see how a Christian believing Democratic candidate for political office could do more to show that their faith motivates their policy choices and that that would probably attract some moderate Christian evangelicals. As a tactical move that makes sense in terms of the goal of increasing the chances of getting more Democrats elected to office. I suppose as long as the sentiment of the Democratic candidate who happens to be a Christian is genuine, then even the somewhat manipulative nature of the tactic would probably not be seen as too cynical within the context of the level of general mendacity that inheres in a lot of political maneuvering.

But that characterization may not be fair to Amy Sulivan's thesis. Perhaps she isn't advocating that believing Democratic politicians do this simply as a tactic but she is actually as much talking to Democratic non-believers. That is, maybe she thinks believing Democratic politicians would be more willing to openly talk about how their faith guides their policy decisions if it weren't for "fear" of turning off an important constituency of non-believers. It could be that she is not so much talking to believing Democratic candidates as she is to that constituency; admonishing them to be more accepting of candidates who espouse such an approach.

One of the major difficulties, I believe, can be found in this statement of hers: religion is "a proxy for a general moral worldview." To a believer this statement probably sounds innocuous enough. What is wrong with a believing Democratic candidate letting voters know that his policies to a large extent spring from their religious beliefs that forms their moral worldview? As an atheist it is obvious to me what the problem is. There is a widely held belief amongst a very high percent of Christians in the U.S. that one simply cannot be moral unless one's views on rightness and wrongness issues from a religious foundation. Because of that widely held view, it isn't invalid thinking for an unbeliever in the U.S. to conclude that many Christians will see the stance of the believing Democratic candidates who rationalize their stands with religion as implying a rejection of those who do not believe. Given the tenuous acceptance non-believers feel they have from a large number of believers in the U.S., it should not be surprising that we would be very concerned that that particular slope is especially slippery.

So... what I would like to see is that if a believing Democratic candidate were to choose to follow Amy Sullivan's advice then that the candidate also speak of acceptance of the notion that non-believers can be just as moral as believers even though for the candidate themselves their policy decisions with a moral dimension are informed by their Christian beliefs.

For the first 18 years of my life I went to church every Sunday, went to Sunday school every Sunday, youth group Sunday evenings, vacation bible school, and bible camp. So when I say SHUT THE FUCK UP you're hearing the voice of experience.

PS - Thanks for the warning about Sullivan guest blogging here. I'll remember to stay away for the duration.

Yes, Kevin, those people who make comments about the flying spaghetti monster are those in charge of the Democratic Party.

Clearly, if there are atheists in the Democratic Party who say mean things about religion, then that means that the Democratic Party--run almost entirely by religionists--is clueless and hostile to religion.

And you wonder why we don't take Sullivan--or you--seriously on this.

I think there is a very small demographic slice of liberals that is hostile to religion (albeit, of course, not Al-Qaeda-like hostility which is what the religious right would like people to think- it's not active hostility, just a belief that religion and organized religion are injustices or at least fairy tales that deserve no respect).

But this slice doesn't represent the great majority of liberals. Views like that might get voiced more on the Internet, and they might be heavily present among certain groups (for example, among Grad-student, WASP Martha's Vineyarders who are Stalinists and whose principal interest in life is to be adherents of authoritarian communism). But they are not even close to realistically being representative of the norm.

Kevin wrote:

Well, I'm not religious myself, so I don't really care.

That may be Kevin's view, but I think the far more prevalent view than either that view, or the rich-kid-communist-anti-religion-view, is the ACLU-Amnesty International-type liberal view, that other religions should be respected and tolerated even if we don't adhere to them ourselves, and that part of respecting a people's right to be religious is not letting any one religion, like for example Evangelical Baptists, get control of public spaces or institutions or use those institutitions to try to convert people to their religion.

Many church-going liberals such as myself believe in the separation of church and state. This means that not only do we not want the church in our schools or in our government, we don't want the state in our churches, meetings, temples and mosques.

In my Meeting we have Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians. We try to be inclusive by recognizing different approaches to issues of public policy, peace and social justice.

We don't try to make peoples' minds up for them, but we make every effort to encourage people to think for themselves and consider issues from a variety of perspectives. The issues we act upon as a group through our Peace and Social Concerns Committee are chosen only after careful, prayerful consideration.

The notion that a representative of a political party could gain our loyalty if they just chose the right issues and appropriate language is simplistic, if not insulting.

"And if you'll excuse an understatement, many of you have been skeptical of her case. Democrats aren't hostile to religion, is the usual rejoinder — often offered right before a series of cavalier references to believers in bearded guys in the sky or the flying spaghetti monster. Nope, no hostility here!"

Well for my part I can say: yes there absolutely is hostility towards organized religion because *its evil.* It is best pushed (forcefully if needed) into the wastebin of history along with all the other vicious ugly ideologies (I'll spare you the obvious Goodwin invoking comparison).

As for it being an electoral winner- so what? You either have principles you won't compromise or you don't. Organized religion is utterly hostile to liberalism, there is no reason for liberalism not to return that hostility in kind. Especially given that christianity's hold on people in the US seems to be slipping.

If anything now is the time to push and harry religion more than ever so that people can stop being mindless puppets of snake oil sales men and maybe develop a personal spiritual awareness (i.e. the genuine thing, not the mass produced fake religious spirituality).

Tlaloc,

I'm sure Quakers would be flattered to hear you refer to them as an "organized religion."

PJ

Well, sure we're hostile to religion -- now! There was a time when agnostics like myself viewed religious faith as incomprehensible but fairly benign. That was before the Religious Right declared war on all the rest of us. It's difficult not to be hostile to people who are constantly bloviating about taking America back for Christ, becoming soldiers for the Lord, fighting the battle for the U.S. and all the rest of their paramilitary jargon.

Throw in constant reminders about the importance of "family values" (a thinly veiled code phrase for "Back in the kitchen, harlots, and stay there this time") and no one should be surprised if we feel threatened. It's one of the reasons I vote as an independent after almost 20 years as a registered Republican.

Liberals try to be inclusive. However, we don't relate well to bigots. Many evangelicals are religious bigots. I was raised a Catholic and my wife is a Southern Baptist. Her family was disappointed that she wasn't going to marry a "Christian" man. Also, I've read some of Sullivan's posts and articles but have found little value in them.

I believe it's a mistake to think of the goal of Democratic outreach to evangelicals to be winning over any appreciable number of evangelicals to the Democratic side.

The better analogy is the outreach (such as it is) of Republicans to African-Americans, and the attempt to highlight any African-Americans who in fact incline their way. The point is not that they expect any real African-American votes or support to go Republican. Rather, it's that the perception that they are being sought for is, unto itself, a sign that the Republican Party is not hostile to them, and therefore everyone else feels more comfortable voting Republican.

So it is with Democratic outreach to evangelicals. It sends a message to the entire voting public that the Democratic Party is embracing of religious people of all stripes -- and that is a message that voters of any religious persuasion find reassuring when it comes to voting Democratic.

The Religious Right found its sea legs sailing the seas of cultural wedge issues but for the most part this was at a time of economic growth and peace--smooth sailing. I wonder how much these types of issues might naturally fade to lesser prominence as people by necessity are having to trouble themselves with the stormy seas of a tanking US economy and all of the woes that go with that.

People, whether religious right or atheist, tend to worry more about kitchen table issues when those issues are at their very own kitchen table. Maybe this cultural ship will sort of right itself thanks to W's recession?

To reiterate what several commenters have alrady said, what Goodman is calling for is not outreach to people of faith, but for Democrats to pander to a certain sub-set of Christians.

Predominately black churches, whose pastors and congregations may still harbor some resentment over the treatment of african americans over the past 400 years, can be safely marginalized (if not outright ignored), while predominately white churches, who can mobilize large numbers of their adherents (see: Hagee) must be catered to. The media will reinforce this dichotomy by exposing and endlessly repeating the incendiary remarks of the former while ignoring or downplaying the equally-incendiary remarks of the latter.

It would behoove...and it's good to be behooved...Clinton and her supporters to stay far, far away from this controversy. Schadenfreude is an ugly thing.

Sorry Kevin, but every time I read something by Amy Sullivan I get the sense that she's apologizing to others on my behalf. I don't need her to do that, nor do I appreciate it.

"Well, I'm not religious myself, so I don't really care. But I do care about winning elections, and if liberals can win more of them by toning down the sarcasm and taking the religious community a little more seriously, is that too much to ask?"

I'm sure Howard Dean thought he could pick up a few more votes by talking about the Book of Job as his favorite of the New Testment.

So-called Conservative politicos sucker religious voters with rhetoric all the time and now you want to do the same thing? Sorry, it's more than just dressing up a pig with lipstick. There is a reason why the Democrats have become the secular party, because secular and non-religious people vote for it while people who are more religious vote for the Republicans and changing this is going to require Democrats who are actually religious and vote their faiths (like being opposed to aboirtion for example) rather than just dropping a few Bible verses in a campaign speech.

Cheap cynicism and cheap rhetoric may get you votes and win elections if that's all you care about. But it doesn't mean you'll change a damn thing. Just ask the religious right.

I'm afraid not.

There is a difference between respecting someone's faith and religious beliefs and letting those beliefs guide public policy. I am a liberal Democrat who attends church every week and is involved in the church community. I totally respect the faith of evangelicals, although I prefer a more private form of worship. However, that doesn't mean I have to respect wing-nuttery like Intelligent Design, the Terri Schaivo disaster, or other wretched excesses of the religious right. Both sides need to retreat from their extreme positions, not just the liberals.

Diana Witt

I don't think liberal politics has much to gain by being more-religiony. This is not at all meant to disparage religion- you can do good for the world through following your religious beliefs and working through your congregation, of course, I just mean that you can also do good in a totally secular way that involves advocating for the success of the liberal point of view and of the Democratic party and its candidates, and this second avenue alone is probably what we need to focus on.

Neither would I say that specific candidates for public office shouldn't talk about their religions presently. You hear a lot of talk about this, but the simple and pragmatic explanation for their behavior is that even if Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were both privately atheists or Deists (I have no opinion one way or the other as to if that's so), is that it's just a political no-go still in this country for one of our major candidates for public office (like a candidate for President) to be actually, outwordly an atheist or even something as unconventional as a Deist. If they didn't claim Christian faith, our candidates would lose and we'd have no political power, so now is not the right time to be complaining about it if you're an advocate of atheism.

I think that the most immoral and dishonest portion of religious forces have too much of the country in their sway, and rather than working to keep them afloat, our better course for the future is to (1) if you're a committed atheist who believes religion is a superstition that victimizes the people, work to promote your point of view, but do it in a way that's respectful of individual people who honestly adhere to a religion and that doesn't advocate for behavior that conventional mores would see as religious bias- don't start calling Jehovah's Witnesses who hand out booklets nasty names (2) if you're a liberal who may or may not be atheist, but sees our goal as tolerance of religions and reaching an equilibrium where all people do not try to use the state to snuff out other religions, than work to offset the propaganda line that liberals are hostile to religion, and make sure that if the subject ever comes up, our true view of tolerance gets stated.

I'm agnostic myself, raised Catholic, and off the top of my head I can name half-a-dozen religious leaders in my native city who have done work with the homeless, with abandonned and abused children, with the handicapped, that no honest person could describe as anything less than heroic. They dedicate their lives to working with those who would otherwise be left behind by our "Christian nation".
I have heard of Rick Warren. I have also heard of that book called "The Secret", Madonna's version of Kaballah, the "prosperity gospel" and half a dozen other self-serving, pop-psych spins on Christianity. I have also heard of Benny Hinn, Ernest Angsley, Oral Roberts, and a bunch of other hucksters, grifters and conmen who use relgiosity to pad their own pockets.
There are a lot of reasons to despise Terry McAuliffe. Amy Lieberman Sullivan's little anecdote about Rick Warren isn't one of them.

But I do care about winning elections, and if liberals can win more of them by toning down the sarcasm and taking the religious community a little more seriously, is that too much to ask?

Kevin, please be clear: Are you asking bloggers to censor themselves, because you think that their anti-religious sarcasm is throwing elections? If so, do you have any proof of this at all? Because I've never heard this allegation made anywhere else, nor have I seen even anecdotal support for it.

Or are you alleging that Democratic candidates and party leaders are the ones making sarcastic remarks about bearded guys in the sky and the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Because I've never seen this either.

I'm not anti-religion myself, and find some of the militant atheists to be irritating -- but I find militant fundamentalists even more irritating (esp. when they do things like attack my city with airplanes -- or blame said attacks on God's anger at our sin).

Kevin wrote: "And if you'll excuse an understatement, many of you have been skeptical of her case. Democrats aren't hostile to religion, is the usual rejoinder ..."

And that is a completely correct rejoinder. Amy Sullivan's claim that Democrats are "hostile to religion" is absolutely baseless and without foundation in reality. Not one single Democratic presidential candidate in generations has failed to loudly proclaim his or her Christian faith.

Further, I am skeptical of a more crucial component of Amy Sullivan's argument: her claim that there are significant numbers of so-called "evangelical" voters who might be persuaded to vote for Democratic candidates if only Democrats would abandon long-held, principled positions on (for example) womens' reproductive rights, and the basic human rights of all people regardless of sexual orientation. I don't believe that the "evangelical" vote is all that significant to begin with, and the numbers of such voters who could plausibly be expected to vote for Democrats is even less significant.

In short, trying to appeal to such voters is not an electorally cost-effective strategy for Democrats. Democrats would benefit much, much more by (for example) straightforward, populist, egalitarian economic appeals, founded in the traditional values of the Democratic Party, to ordinary working-class and middle-class (increasingly indistinguishable from working-class) Americans.

Amy Sullivan is constantly berating the Democratic Party to solve a problem that doesn't exist, through means that offer no significant benefit to the party.

But she's got a shtick, and she's got a publisher, and she's got a magazine where she used to work that will promote her, so she'll probably sell a bunch of books. Well, we all have to make a living somehow.

I am sure many of evangelicals want to get away from the bigmouths who try to speak for them exclusively, as you can see even in this thread. Most of them laugh at The Mouth, as they call him. There's one in every religious group.

"Democrats aren't hostile to religion, is the usual rejoinder — often offered right before a series of cavalier references to believers in bearded guys in the sky or the flying spaghetti monster. Nope, no hostility here!"

Sigh.

p1. Most Democrats aren't hostile to religion.

p2. Atheists are often more than a little short-tempered toward religion and its believers, though some of us can be reasonable with unreasonable people when something important is on the table.

p3. Most Democrats aren't atheists.

p4. Most Democrats are often more than a little short-tempered toward atheists and various similar religious fringes, particularly those who have little patience for ham-handed evangelism. Though, some of them have been making noticeable efforts to tone it down lately.

Hope. This. Helps.

Just to make my 11:25 comment a little more clear: I am trying (1) not to tell liberals what to think about religion (2) except to get liberals to adopt a minimum liberal view of religious tolerance and (3) to get us to avoid resorting to pandering that has a religious flavor, or that is tantamount to Dems using Democratic resources to promote Evangelicalism.

Very simply: Amy Sullivan's contention that Democratic candidates -- in particular presidential candidates -- don't talk about the role that their "faith" plays in their lives, politics and policies, is false.

All Democratic presidential candidates talk about the importance of their "faith". Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both talk about it. John Kerry talked about it. Al Gore and Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter talked about it. And all of them make frequent, ostentatious displays of attending church.

Amy Sullivan's central claim is false. It is obviously and blatantly false. Amy Sullivan is clearly too intelligent and well-informed to not realize this. Therefore I can only conclude that she is a deliberate liar.

The way the win elections is to limit the impact of religion on the electorate. The way to do that is to improve the educational system so that people are smart enough to understand facts, rather than myth.

I understand that accommodation of religious people may be necessary on a temporary basis to create a viable majority. Given that reality I'm willing to temporarily stifle my objections.

But I don't like it.

Religion is dangerous, divisive and counterproductive. Foreclosing empirical explanations by substituting wild-ass guesses (which is all the metaphysical propositions of religion amount to) is not conducive to the advancement of human knowledge or understanding. Faith is misguided and leads inevitably to abuses by authority that exploits the faith.

The sooner the rapidly growing non-religious minority becomes powerful enough to start speaking the truth and stop pandering to religious defensiveness, the happier I'll be.

One of the parenting paradoxes I have found is that kids, well mine anyway, are at their snottiest and most demanding right after we've knocked ourselves out doing something nice for them such as a nice trip or an over-the-top birthday party or whatever.

Conservative Christians are like children. The more power and influence they achieve, the more whining we have to hear about how oppressed and disrespected they are. Give these people an inch and they will take a mile and then diss you for it. And I say that as a devout, albeit liberal, Catholic.

So Amy's coming back for a little more faux martyrdom. Maybe someone can head off the worst by pointing out exactly what it is about Amy that raises so many hackles. Then maybe she can address it.
1. She feeds (whether intentionally or not I will not speculate) the utterly false Rethuglican talking point that the Democratic Party is hostile to religion, especially Christianity. This, as she knows perfectly well, is a lie. The Democratic Party is not hostile to religion, including Christianity, nor is any prominent Democratic figure or numerically or financially important Democratic constituency.
2. Despite being praactically begged on several occasions, Amy simply will not tell us, in understandable and operational terms, what she would have us, concretely DO. Is there some issue she wants us to fold on? The vast majority of the Democratic Party is pro-choice and isn't going to change. The minority that is not is never read out of the party (anyone who recycles the Gov. Casey in 1992 myth should be summarily executed). It is welcome to stay, but it IS the minority and cannot expect to prevail. Same with gay rights issues.
If it isn't issues, then what? I'm all in favor of believing candidates (the only kind we get) harking back to the Bible (since the only kind we get believe in that middle eastern religious text rather than its competitors). I'm OK with non-believers referring to Christian traditions rhetorically, too. I often quote scripture myself to make a point -- though the religiously hip scratch their heads over someone with my last name quoting the King James translation.
Or is her point that there aren't enough Democrats who can recognize and distinguish the various self-help gurus with collars -- largely a Protestant issue, since everyone knows who the major players in Catholicism are? That may be true, and it would be a shame for a candidate to be better briefed about NASCAR than about big-time religiosos. If Amy is advertising for the job as briefer to candidates on the bewildering variety of Protestant panjandrums, then someone give her a paying job and shut her up.
Or does she just want to shut everyone else up?
I don't know, and neither does anyone else who reads what Amy writes. She has had numerous opportunities to explain, but, as the Good Book says, seven time seven shall I forgive, and I'm offering, in Christian fellowship, a fair chance to answer the concerns that drive her critics. How about it, Amy?

If a practicing Buddhist campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination, and he or she spoke frequently and eloquently about:

-- his or her faith in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha;

-- the central role that the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the realization of non-self and impermanence play in his or her value system and the public policies that he or she advocates;

-- the great benefits to be obtained by sitting in meditation on the breath for a while each day;

-- the crucial importance of the Buddha's teaching that each of us must not blindly accept any "religious" teaching or practice, but determine for ourselves, empirically, whether the fruits of such teachings and practices are wholesome or unwholesome;

... would Amy Sullivan be pleased, and praise such a Democrat for emphasizing the importance of "faith" in public life?

Or is Amy Sullivan simply demanding that Democratic candidates endorse her particular religious beliefs?

Pastor Amy is the Kenny Lofton of Christianity. She's in a race with Rod Dreher to see who can get through the most denominations.

But at least her professional scold act got her an advance. Blessed are the tskers, apparently.

Certainly, I will "tone it down" and get serious about respecting their belief systems....soon as I find one of that ilk that is capable of the same (That is... taking the U.S. Constitution serious)

Kevin asks: "Are Democrats clueless about religion?"

Arguably, evangelical Christians are "clueless" about religion, since most of them know very little about any religion other than their own. And some of them seem to know relatively little about their own religion, beyond the confines of their particular sect of Christianity.

In my own experience, the people I have met who have the deepest and broadest knowledge of religion, who have insight into, and are able to compare and contrast the histories, beliefs and ideals of various religious traditions from around the world, have not been Christians. Let alone conservative evangelical Christians. Indeed, some of them have been atheists.

Amy Robinson is a dishonest, often outright lying, writer. This has been amply demonstrated time and again in a reasoned way by posters here and elsewhere. Kevin seems indifferent to this--as he notes, he just don't care about religion. Kevin, have you ever read the comments to her objectionable posts and seriously thought about them? It appears not--you just don't care. So here she comes again with her Republican-lite theocratic policies, her concocted strawman Democratic sins to argue against, her ridiculous, and fact free, arguments that Democrats should jettison policies that the bulk of their supporters have backed for decades in order to appeal to right wing voters who will never vote for them. Expect a firestorm when this one trick pony returns.

Now if the donkeys can screw the Faithful the way the elephants have been screwing them since the hatching of Saint Ron, then I'm all in favor of doing such a wicked thing to the Faithful!

But I do care about winning elections, and if liberals can win more of them by toning down the sarcasm and taking the religious community a little more seriously, is that too much to ask?

No, but there's no reason to think we can. It's insulting to religious conservatives to think that they're dupes who would easily switch parties if everyone offered this disingenuous show of "respect". Religious conservative vote Republican not because of the meanie religion mockers, but for real policy reasons. Pretending otherwise helps no one.

Wasn't it this blog that coined the term "nutpicker"?

Whining about how the country doesn't kiss theists' asses enough? Must be a day that ends in the letter Y.

p.s. Rick Warren is a purpose-driven tool.

Evangelism is fundamentally at odds with American democracy and the tradition of natural rights.

Most evangelists share a belief that the Bible is the infallible Word of the One True God. If you believe this then you don't believe that a person has a right to disagree or to think in any other way than the way you believe. This is a fundamentally un-American view.

Ironically, democracy gives intolerant people an avenue to impose their religious beliefs through lobbying, electing other intolerant people and through the process of creating intolerant public policies and laws (hearings, etc). Outside of the political process our ability to address the motivation for religious intolerance is limited yet this is what we waste so much time debating.

Liberals and moderates are plenty smart enough to recognize the kind of policies motivated by intolerance. We just need to defeat the canddiates in the upcoming election who espouse these views. When we finally do this consistently, over time, the evangelists will realize that democratic elections are giving them a poor ROI for the millions they are spending. They will begin to define their priorities differently so as to make their Jesus look more like a winner, not a loser.

American democracy has proven resilient in weeding out intolerance. Evangelists have had their way for the last decade or so but big changes are blowin' in the wind. In my opinion, Jesus will be the better for it.

This book (and this post) seems to me more indicative of a general lack of nuance and understanding about religion in popular culture and media, than it does about a lack of understanding about religion among liberals specifically. I'm a committed lefty, and I've spent the last year (in grad school) studying, among other things, the roots of fundamentalism in America (MUCH more complex than any non-academic, left or right, understands) and cultural questions related to New England congregationalism in early America. The kind of current journalism that I'm guessing this book fits into is often deeply unaware of the many histories behind American religion.

I'm not trying necessarily to generalize from my experience -- I'm just saying that this post (and presumably the book, if I read it) are examples of a kind of commentary I find very frustrating. Whether or not liberals are insensitive to religious issues is less important than the fact that most people in America (most dangerously those writing about it) are not very knowledgeable about how religion in America got to where it is today.

Amanda Marcotte wrote: "It's insulting to religious conservatives to think that they're dupes who would easily switch parties if everyone offered this disingenuous show of 'respect'."

I think that religious conservatives are, in fact, dupes. They have been doubly duped.

They have been duped into believing in a bogus religion, to begin with -- a religion in which many, if not most, of the religious leaders and authorities are money-grubbing frauds who laugh at the "faithful" all the way to the bank.

And they have been further duped into believing that the Republican Party represents their "faith-based" values, when in fact the Republican Party represents nothing but the interests of its owners, America's Ultra-Rich Ruling Class, Inc.

Nonetheless, I agree with you that such people are unlikely to switch parties. They have been too thoroughly duped into believing that the Republican Party is an extension of their religion.

However, and fortunately for the Democrats, none of this matters much, because the numbers of such voters are quite small, compared to other much larger groups of voters whose votes the Democratic Party can win by emphasizing and renewing its traditional core values of social and economic justice for all.

Not only is Amy Sullivan's characterization of the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates as "hostile to religion" (and by "religion" she means always and only conservative, fundamentalist Christianity) completely, laughably false, but her claim that the Democrats need the support of conservative religious voters to win elections is even more false.

Both Al Gore and John Kerry spoke of the important role that their Christian "faith" played in their lives. Both of them, in fact, won their presidential elections --- without the votes of right-wing Christians -- but were prevented from attaining the presidency because the Republicans stole the elections of 2000 and 2004 through voter disenfranchisement and fraud.

Working to ensure clean, fair and honest elections is a much more vital issue for Democrats than trying to get the votes of conservative fundamentalist Christians.

Amy Sullivan's entire argument is bogus through and through. But she has hit on something that will probably sell books.

It's easy to go on and on and on about religion, because "religion" has no content other than people's opinions. That makes it an easy subject for lazy-minded writers to build a career on.

As I am sure Kevin realizes, all generalizations are hopelessly false, including this one.

I think there are more atheists and agnostics in the liberal cause and I think they are generally more outspoken. I also think that more young people are liberal and that many of them are more skeptical about religion. I also think that a lot of the old guard leftist academics and activists tend to be more atheistic and / or antagonistic towards certain sects of American religion.

And I also think that there is a huge number of quiet Democrats who are religious. I, for one, go to Church every Sunday. Granted, it's a Unitarian Church, and I think an argument can be made that McDonald's is more traditionally Christian than a Unitarian Church, but I do think there are a lot of us out here.

But it's hard for me to argue against the thesis that the Democratic establishment seems a bit clueless when it comes to religion.

100% right about the online comments. The only Democrats I meet hostile to religion are online.

So I don't sweat it myself. Plus I like Amy Sullivan so I've already got one strike against me.

I don't know, and neither does anyone else who reads what Amy writes. She has had numerous opportunities to explain, but, as the Good Book says, seven time seven shall I forgive, and I'm offering, in Christian fellowship, a fair chance to answer the concerns that drive her critics. How about it, Amy?

Posted by: CJColucci on March 17, 2008 at 11:55 AM | PERMALINK

Probably a dead thread here, so CJ won't see this, but I had an e-mail exchange with Amy a few years ago in which she ducked every one of your intelligent questions, and then the correspondence was at an end. She simply would not articulate action, nor could she really articulate what 'anti-Christian' offences Democrats were committing.

That made me think a lot less of her. She knows that her schtik backs her quickly into a logical and rhetorical corner, and then she starts claiming that she's being attacked because of her religion.

This happens in every interaction I've seen with her. She IS a concern troll. I'm by no means convinced that she even campaigns for or votes for real Democrats in any election cycle.

Well, I'm not religious myself, so I don't really care.

And this is part of the problem: I mean, if I said "I'm not a woman myself, so I don't care if the party is hostile to women", well, I think I'd be torn to pieces in about 30 seconds flat here.

"Why is it that someone who is anxious to tell you the good news about their religion never wants you to return the favor?" GB Shaw

As a non-believer, I'd just like religious people to show me the same respect that I try to show them. But if they need me to acknowledge their wonderfulness because of their belief system, then we kinda have a problem dealing with social and political issues.

And if someone's religion is giving them a problem about The Gay thing, they can take it up with their loving god and leave me alone.

I've worked productively with many religious people on many community and political issues over the years. How about we adhere to the American ideal of separation of church and state? And Amy Sullivan get over it?

It's insulting to religious conservatives to think that they're dupes who would easily switch parties if everyone offered this disingenuous show of "respect".

Religious conservatives aren't really the issue. There are plenty of religious people who aren't really "conservative" but who are skeptical of the Democratic Party because they've bought into the narrative pushed by the major media at the behest of the Republican Party that the Democratic Party is hostile to "people of faith", something which is substantively not true on the level of political candidates and policies, though it is true, at least in a comparative manner, when you look at the attitudes and actions of many of the vocal supporters of the party.

Most Democrats aren't atheists.

But most atheists who are politically visible and associated with a major party in the US are Democrats: and while that may not be important to a reasonable assessment of the Democratic Party's active hostility toward religion, given the way people's perceptions tend to work (and the boost given by a media who loves a narrative like this), it is a substantial factor in how much people of faith can feel that the Democratic Party is a hostile environment for them.

jj,

How would a better understanding of American religious history advance the debate?

I feel almost sure it wouldn't change the views of those (like me) who feel that religion is categorically, fundamentally harmful. The details of particular movements and their interactions may be historically interesting, but I don't feel they would make me tolerant of something that deserves to be excised, not tolerated, because of the danger it poses to the type of society in which I want to live.

That proposition is based on the nature of religious metaphysics, which religious history doesn't really inform.

dal,

Thanks for the thought-provoking response. Certainly religious history speaks to metaphysical questions. For example, where does the strain of dispensational premillenialism that many modern conservative charismatics/evangelicals subscribe to come from? A scholar on religion would certainly consider that strain to be associated with questions of metaphysics. But this scholar (if she were a good one) would consider how questions about dispensationalism inform the current debate. It's not a question of it answering some sort of positivistic yes or no question.

More to the point, wouldn't you (as presumably an atheist or agnostic), like to have a knowledge of the roots of premillenialism to refute what is probably, to you (and me, frankly) one of the most obnoxious lines of reasoning of a typical far-right charismatic Christian? They start talking about "Left Behind," you show them that that trope didn't exist in Christian theology before the mid-19th century.

*

"I hope we can chat about this stuff over the next few days in a fairly civil way. We can do that for one short week, can't we?"

Guess not.

Obama says Wright is like an uncle to him.

I have actual uncles that believe things far more radical than Wright. What is it that you mean to suggest about that?

. . . if liberals can win more of them by toning down the sarcasm and taking the religious community a little more seriously, is that too much to ask?

I think some of us (again, a very small number of people) need to tone down the sarcasm a bit; I don't know about "taking the religious community more seriously"-- it depends what you mean by that. As for what Amy Sullivan's asking for, it sounds like she's asking us almost to help religious conservatives keep their kids in the fold by voluntarily making it look like, in America, there is no alternative to being an afficionado of religion.

This is kind of off-topic, and I apologize, but let me just say since it's a little related that any acceptable religion, for me, would have to allow that even atheists who are good people are not going to go to hell, and I think a lot of religious people feel the same.

I think Amanda Marcotte's 12:26 response to the above quote is inadequate, because she doesn't allow that toning down the sarcasm, and so on, can be just being a little more considerate-- voluntarly trying to act in a moral manner-- and it doesn't have to be fake pandering.

Ever the pragmatist, I'd like to hear some specifics about just what Donnie Fowler and Mara Vanderslice did in Michigan for the Kerry campaign. Let's cut the philosophical religion-baiting, and try to figure out how to win a national election.

cmdicely wrote: "But most atheists who are politically visible and associated with a major party in the US are Democrats [...] it is a substantial factor in how much people of faith can feel that the Democratic Party is a hostile environment for them."

So, "people of faith" feel that the Democratic Party is "a hostile environment for them" because the Democratic Party is open to the visible, active participation of other people who don't share their "faith".

That right there says a lot about what "people of faith" are looking for in a political party: any political party that tolerates or accepts, let alone embraces, the active participation of non-believers is regarded as "hostile".

That's why so much of Amy Sullivan's ongoing sermon boils down to advising Democrats to reject, exclude and otherwise kick out people, policies and ideas that conservative evangelical Christians view as "hostile" to their beliefs. In other words, Democrats should discard their long-standing core values and the vast majority of the traditional Democratic constituencies, in order to gain a handful of votes from intolerant religious believers.

I'm not religious myself

I'm a Christian and a liberal.

Democrats aren't hostile to religion, is the usual rejoinder — often offered right before a series of cavalier references to believers in bearded guys in the sky or the flying spaghetti monster. Nope, no hostility here!

I've made many of those same comments in the face of conservative evangelical overreach.

I am not hostile to religion.

Therefore, you are wrong.

I do care about winning elections, and if liberals can win more of them by toning down the sarcasm and taking the religious community a little more seriously, is that too much to ask?

Is it too much to ask for Kevin Drum to realize that white conservative evangelicals are a SUBSET of "the religious community"?
Is it too much to ask that the Democratic party not abandon its principles, liberal Christians - indeed, ALL liberals and liberalism itself, in order to pander to conservatives who won't accept Republican Lite when Republican Classic is on the ballot?
Is it too much to note that Democrats have repeatedly tried pandering and failed to gain any noticable results?
Is it too much to not buy into Republican branding and not deny that "pro-choice" means that you are in favor of a woman's right to choose?
Is it too much to point out this:

Since it doesn't seem to make any difference how much they talk about their religion or spend time in church or anything else, what could they possibly do to prove that they are really, truly, god-fearing religious people? Why, they could adopt socially conservative policies!

Is it too much to ask when Will Saletan will be guest blogging?

I'm sorry if this sounds as if I'm being uncivil, but today's Democratic Party meets the needs of many liberals and moderates who are Christian. Why do you think we'd keep quiet when you misrepresent us like this? Amy Sullivan is talking about courting conservatives while ignoring the millions of religious people who vote Democratic. (Hey, whatever sells books at the DLC, right? Way to repeat a Republican meme, kids.)

There are two constituencies that the Democratic Party abandoned at least twenty years ago, to their detriment.

One is men and women of faith, and not only "evangelicals." There are plenty of mainsteam moderate Americans who do believe in God, go to church or synagoge frequently, and think that it helps their children to go to "Sunday school" to use the protestant terminology. I am familiar with Presbyterian, Methodist, and United Church of Christ denominations, and many people in these denominations are appalled at the lack of attention the Democratic Party has paid to them.

They are also appalled at the non-reaction of their church leaders when the media report some right wing minister's position as "speaking for all Christians" which is simply not true.

One website I would refer you to because it does conduct good research about the beliefs of Americans, is www.barna.org. Its position is conservative, but its research is straight forward.

The second group that the Democratic party has ignored is the military. They have essentially ceded it to the Republican party, which has been a colossal mistake. It's fine to get the former general who wants to run for office at the national level, but where the Democratic party really needs to cultivate relationships is at the enlisted and junior officer level. They seem to have forgotten that Harry S Truman was an Army artillery officer, and that FDR and JFK both had experience with the Navy, and that there are thousands and thousands of men and women in the uniformed services, and whose families are very much affected as well.

There was a great essay in Sunday's Washington Post by an Army captain who has decided to leave the Army and well worth reading. The title is:
"I Love It. But I Have To Leave It.
By John Rogers
Sunday, March 16, 2008; Page B01

In the article, one of his statements that to me speaks volumes about why the whole "pay for performance" issue is destined to fail in the government is this:

"An initial drop in salary won't hurt me, even if I have to pay for medical coverage. Besides, money isn't my motivation for serving -- which is why I find no incentive in the Army's $25,000 to $35,000 bonus for staying in. "

Not everyone does everything just for money, and that's the fundamental flaw in all of the "pay for performance" programs that the conservatives promote for solving all government problems. The other dirty secret is that if you talk to private sector people who do have "pay for performance" type compensation system, the percentage related to the performance part is somewhere between 25-50%. In the federal plans it's usually a max of 5%, with 2-3% more likely.

cmdicely wrote of "... the narrative pushed by the major media at the behest of the Republican Party that the Democratic Party is hostile to 'people of faith' ..."

That narrative is, of course, a deliberate, carefully-crafted, focus-group-tested lie.

And Amy Sullivan is actively, deliberately, knowingly engaged in perpetrating that lie.

The Washington Monthly might just as well invite Bill O'Reilly or Ann Coulter to guest blog about the Democratic Party's "hostility" to "people of faith".

There is one elected politician in the entire federal government who does not belief in a supreme being. Democrats are the majority in the House and in the Senate. I have never heard one Democratic candidate for public office mock religion...and yet Kevin says the democrats need to tone down the sarcasm and take the religious community more seriously.

Yes, it is too much to ask. The "we don't get no respect" routine is a mirror of the "liberal bias in the media" canard. If you say something truly and completely false over and over and over enough --- AND you have the power and influence that makes people defer to you---then you can whine about not being respected without getting laughed out of the room.

Bill Huddleston wrote: "There are two constituencies that the Democratic Party abandoned at least twenty years ago, to their detriment. One is men and women of faith ..."

That is absurdly false. Every single Democratic presidential candidate of the past generation has spoken prominently, publicly and repeatedly of the importance of his or her "faith", as have the overwhelming majority of Democratic candidates for local, state and national offices all over the country.

The idea that the Democratic Party as an institution, or that Democratic politicians as a group, have "abandoned" or are "hostile" to "people of faith" is a deliberate, carefully-crafted, focus-group-tested lie perpetrated by the Republican Party. It is false, and absurdly so, no matter how often it is repeated.

Bill Huddleston wrote: "The second group that the Democratic party has ignored is the military."

That is likewise an absurd falsehood. The overwhelming majority of Democratic politicians are outspoken militarists, who glorify and exalt the military at every opportunity, and are as obnoxious as the Republicans in equating support for a bloated, half-trillion-dollar-per-year military machine with "patriotism". More substantively, Democrats have been consistently more supportive than the Republicans of both serving members of the military as well as veterans when it comes to pay, working conditions and veterans issues.

I assume you are posting in good faith, but both of your central assertions are plainly false.

I must add that when you read past the "please be more polite and respectful" initial volley from the religiously paranoid, you discover that they also advocate policy changes that would be more attractive and friendly to evangelicals. Leading suggestions are to abandon gay rights, affirmative action and freedom of choice. Of course, not in those words, but that is what they are asking.

So, it's not just that the want the Democratic party to treat them with deference, they want us to rip out our principles and cast them aside. They want us to be the Republican Party with Food Stamps and Welfare.

Nope, no hostility here! [ ] Well, I'm not religious myself, so I don't really care.

I'll just presume that Kevin is celebrating his St. Patrick's Day Irish-style, like a true Drunken Master, and that's why he wrote stuff like this in this post.

Wow. A LOT of you are making Jesus angry. A LOT.

Well, it's your funeral. I love how liberals attack poor Amy Sullivan before she's even had the chance to post a single thing.

At least your consistent! Jesus likes that about you--it makes it easier to destroy you and send you to burn in hell!

Great. I, for one, can't wait to hear Amy Sullivan denounce and reject John Hagee and categorically state that bigots like Hagee have no place in the evangelical community. Not holding my breath, though.

I wholeheartedly agree with comments above about the need to reject even the premise that Democrats are hostile to religion.

I first noticed this meme in 2000. Just by voicing concern about how religion seemed to be creeping into the local schools my Orange County Republican brother accused me of being an elitist, "East Coast Christian" and that liberal Democrats were anti-Christian bigots. Criticism of candidates backed by evangelicals were immediately interpreted as attacks on Christianity.

One way I found to deflate this argument is to stress repeatedly that a person's right to practice their religion is guaranteed by the Constitution but that the Constitution has built-in checks and balances to prevent people from imposing religious views on others. In other words, we can agree on the American decision-making process even as we argue over the results of that process.

Liberals are largely people of faith. We don't need to wrap ourselves around the evangelical axle in order to win votes in November.

I also can't wait to see Amy Sullivan denounce and reject Ralph Drollinger, the California legislature's chaplain, who said that religious tolerance offends god. I can't wait to hear her say that there is no room in the evangelical community for bigots like Drollinger. As if that will ever happen.

Um...exactly why is it that any political party needs to reach out to anyone on the basis of their religious faith?

I saw someone upthread talk about how Presbyterians and Methodists are "appalled" at "the lack of attention" the Democratic Party has paid them.

Why should the Democratic Party be paying attention to a church? Is it not enough for the party to pay attention to its members, to their concerns? And are they not the church?

This whole thing is stupid.

Norman Rogers wrote: "I love how liberals attack poor Amy Sullivan before she's even had the chance to post a single thing."

The commenters who are critical of "poor" Amy Sullivan are very familiar with the numerous "things" she has posted on this site over the years.

All of which "things", of course, invariably amount to the same "thing" -- her never-ending sermon premised on the blatant and absurd falsehood that the Democratic Party as an institution, or Democrats as a group, are "hostile" to "people of faith" (by which she always and only means "white conservative evangelical Christians"), and her equally baseless contention that the Democratic Party, and/or Democratic voters as a group, need to abandon their traditional core values and constituencies in order to gain some small number of votes from a a core Republican constituency, which Sullivan absurdly maintains is necessary for Democrats to win elections.

And you have been participating in the discussion threads on this site long enough to be well aware of that.

Therefore, you must be a deliberate liar.

But then, I have been participating in the discussion threads on this site long enough to be well aware of that.

Amy is a concern troll of the first order.

To beat republican nuts we must embrace them...

I agree with Kevin Drum, circa August 2006:

if the best evidence of wackjobism you can find is a few anonymous nutballs commenting on a blog, then the particular brand of wackjobism you're complaining about must not be very widespread after all.

Indeed, on this subject Amy Sullivan is very good at beating up strawmen.

Liberal pundits who write about religion ought to describe the Republican Party as religiously "hostile" to all liberty.

The simple truth Democrats need to grasp is that for many Americans, religion, as Sullivan rightly notes, is "a proxy for a general moral worldview."

This is just another way of saying that most Americans think atheists lack this "general moral worldview" -- that is, that we're moral degenerates. Now, maybe Amy is talking about other Democrats, but certainly she should understand that atheists already "grasp" this quite fully -- often due to abuse at the hands of believers.

And if you'll excuse an understatement, many of you have been skeptical of her case. Democrats aren't hostile to religion, is the usual rejoinder...

I'd say a better rejoinder is that to the extent that Democrats are "hostile" to religion, or at least to certain religions, then the Republicans are at least equally hostile. Their hostility is simply directed at different belief systems. Liberals tend to look down on evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity. The right-wing, on the other hand, looks down on anyone who's not evangelical/fundamentalist. That includes secularists, liberal Christians, most Catholics, neo-pagans, Muslims, followers of the Eastern religions, etc. Conservatives are friendly towards "religion" only if you redefine the term such that excludes the vast majority of religious traditions.

Consider the recent John Hagee affair. You have an extremist anti-Catholic bigot being courted by the McCain campaign, and the media doesn't even raise an eyebrow. They get away with this because people like Hagee have re-branded their radical belief system as "godliness" or just "religious", while at the same time labeling liberals as "anti-religious" merely for rejecting that belief system. The real problem is that Republicans have been hugely successful in redefining religion this way, and therefore framing the debate in their own terms. And Amy Sullivan appears to be doing everything she can to help them.

Steve,

Well said. Conservative Christians are some of the most religiously intolerant people I know.

They started branding liberals as members of an anti-religious conspiracy back in the late 80s when their conservative public policy agenda hit roadblocks in the courts and in Congress. People who weren't motivated to act on individual issues like abortion, gay marriage and prayer in the schools became outraged into action by the twisted thought that liberals were trying to prevent them from practicing their brand of Christianity.

I think this explains their perpetual victim mentality and their institutionalized defensiveness. I further believe this religious defensiveness played right into Bush's hand and fueled an over-reaction to 9-11, which you will recall Jerry Falwell initially blamed on liberals' innate sinfulness.

pj

But most atheists who are politically visible and associated with a major party in the US are Democrats....

Honestly, cmdicely, I can think of only one "politically visible" atheist associated with either party: Christopher Hitchens. And that's digging pretty deep -- he's not an officeholder; he has no regular platform on television or radio; he's just a middlingly-famous author who can pull down regular chat show invites. And he's the country's most famous politically-involved atheist by a wide margin.

As far as I can tell, "politically visible atheist" is oxymoronic -- avowed atheism is a near-guarantee of political invisibility. (This is another way of saying that atheists are an oppressed religious minority.)

Seriously, I can't think of anyone else. Can you help me out with a few names?

The better analogy is the outreach (such as it is) of Republicans to African-Americans, and the attempt to highlight any African-Americans who in fact incline their way. The point is not that they expect any real African-American votes or support to go Republican. Rather, it's that the perception that they are being sought for is, unto itself, a sign that the Republican Party is not hostile to them, and therefore everyone else feels more comfortable voting Republican.

It's a fair analogy, frankly0. There's a counter-analogy, though -- Howard Dean's overture to guys in pickup trucks flying confederate flags. Now, maybe what he was really trying to do was draw more moderate whites into the party by making it feel less hostile to them. But understandably, the appeal made black voters -- a loyal consituency and a pillar of the party's strength -- very, very uncomfortable.

Obviously the position of unbelievers in the Democratic party is much more marginal. I'm just trying to illustrate the dynamics.

So tell me Kevin and Amy: does "faith" trump the Constitution?

Cranky

A couple more picky little questions for Kevin and Amy if they don't mind: (2) what if my "faith" is different than your faith? (3) what if my faith is irreconcilably different from your faith? (4) do people with no faith deserve respect? (5) what happens when "people of faith" are contemptuous toward people with no faith?

Cranky

[I]t's just a political no-go still in this country for one of our major candidates for public office (like a candidate for President) to be actually, outwordly an atheist or even something as unconventional as a Deist.

It doesn't suffice to say "it's just a political no-go." In fact it's not something that "just is." There's an honest characterization of it, which is that it's an injustice, and there's an identifiable cause for it, which is religious intolerance. Setting this sort of thing right may take a great deal of patience, but we still have a duty to call it what it is.

[N]ow is not the right time to be complaining about it if you're an advocate of atheism.

First, let's be precise and talk about advocating religious tolerance of nonbelief.

Second, now is an outstanding time to be complaining about it, as it will be until unbelievers face no social or political inequalities and we have nothing to complain about anymore. We can prioritize other political work, but it's unacceptable simply to cross our items off the agenda.

I'm not tolerant of organized religion. I'm a woman who spent the first 20 years of her life in the Catholic church, being told I am less-than, second-thought, the reason all of humanity is so "sinful" (Eve and teh sex, you know!), supposed to be subservient, not allowed to be in control of my own reproduction, not allowed to have any say in how things in the church are run, not allowed to have a voice. This is Roman Catholic doctrine. Anti-woman. Period. The church is built on a foundation of misogyny.

I can't speak with any authority about other religions, but my observations have led me to conclude that most religions have oppression of women as a cornerstone of their dogma.

And nearly all religions hate homosexuals, or at least the "sin" of homosexuality, so what exactly am I supposed to be tolerating here? And why can I not speak out against religions that tell me when I am sinning, what will happen to my "soul" after I die, and how I should behave? What bloody business is it off theirs? Why are they permitted to tell me how awful I am and I'm not allowed to answer back, lest I offend? FTS.

So no, I'm not tolerant. Religion is dangerous, in my view. Dangerous and destructive.