"Have the Democrats Gotten Religion?"

Sure! Sort of. Well, maybe. Whatever.

Joseph Knippenberg looks at the culture war as it's playing out in Democratic politics (brackets and italics in original):

.... And as long as we are paying attention to deeds rather than mere words, it makes sense to examine how Kerry and the Democrats have chosen to reach out to their religious brethren. Earlier this year, the Kerry campaign appointed its first Director of Religious Outreach, Mara Vanderslice, whom they recruited from the Dean campaign. While she had interned for a year at Jim Wallis’ liberal evangelical Sojourners magazine, she had also worked as an organizer of anti-globalization protests, some of which turned violent. Nothing in her background suggested that she could effectively reach out to mainstream people of faith. When the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights criticized her for speaking at a rally co-sponsored by the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (Act-Up), the Kerry campaign cut her access to the press. Just before the Boston convention, the Democratic National Committee stepped into the breach, naming the Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson as senior advisor for religious outreach. An ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), she formerly directed the liberal Clergy Network for National Leadership Change (whose "sole mission is to get a national leadership change") and is married to John Lynner Peterson, communications director for the Interfaith Alliance, an ecumenical group at the forefront of Bush’s religious critics. Her other claim to fame, noted by the Catholic League, is that she joined an amicus curiae brief in support of Michael Newdow’s suit to take "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance. (Less than two weeks later, she resigned under fire, admitting that she couldn’t be effective in her post.) Wherever two or three are gathered on behalf of secular liberal causes, there you will find John Kerry and his (disappearing) liaisons to the religious community. Even PBS noted that "the efforts [at the convention] are mainly aimed at political and theological liberals" and that "white evangelicals and Catholics had a much lower profile." Ray Flynn, former Democratic mayor of Boston and Clinton’s Ambassador to the Vatican, asserted that "there was no room for dissenting voice or diversity on some of these issues" at the convention. By their deeds we’ll know them indeed!...

See also these and these.

(Thanks, Peter.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 08/19/04 08:33:52 AM
Categorized as Political.