A Few Thoughts on the Democratic Party's 'Hostility' Toward Religion

[trotsky]

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a51957/obama-aide-democrats-evangelicals/

I have great empathy for the people whose lives feel so desperate, or whose spirituality feels so besieged, that they decided to hand the government over to a vulgar talking yam. I have great empathy, but Jesus H. Christ on a grand piano, I am completely out of sympathy. Ever since November 9, I have been told that the only thing for us all to do is buy a cookie for every member of the White Working Class while simultaneously abandoning "identity politics." Come now, inevitably, the white evangelical Christians, shoving their way to the front of the snickerdoodle line.

Tout les 'Toobz have been abuzz over an interview in The Atlantic with this Michael Wear fellow, a former Obama religious-outreach aide who's pitching a book about the "hostility" toward religion that he found among his colleagues while working in the White House. This, it should be pointed out, has now become a regular part of the presidential transition process. Back in 2008, when C-Plus Augustus was handing the keys over to the current president, David Kuo, who'd held a similar position to Wear's within the Bush administration, published a book in which he argued that the Bush White House had been disrespectful to religious conservatives.

...

OK, put up or shut up. Who in a position of power in the Democratic Party is "openly disdainful" of religion? Not some anonymous staffer that Wear allegedly met in the West Wing whose knowledge of Matthew's gospel is lacking, but a person of real power and influence. (And, no, that leaked e-mail about conservative Catholics is not it, either.) Hillary Rodham Clinton talked endlessly about the impact of her Methodist upbringing on her development as a public person. She lost to a guy who talked about Two Corinthians, who couldn't tell the difference between a Methodist and a Podiatrist if you spotted him John Wesley, and for whom 81 percent of the people Wear thinks the Democrats disdain voted anyway.

What Wear is proposing is a prescription for political futility in the guise of tolerance.

[J_William_Ryan]

1. Supporting settled, accepted

Establishment Clause jurisprudence is not to be "hostile" to religion.

Opposing religious extremists' efforts to conjoin church and state in violation of the First Amendment is not to be "hostile" to religion.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. The Establishment Clause primarily promotes religious neutrality.

It prevents any religion or religion in general from promoting its tenets and beliefs into codified or judicial law, thereby imposing religious law upon non-practicing citizens.

It prevents one religion from becoming more powerful than other religions.

It protects the civil rights of adherents of minority religions and/or non-believers.

It prevents this country from becoming "balkanized" into religious factions, warring against each other.

It prevents the commandeering of public schools to be used to promote religious beliefs and tenets upon children who are compelled by law to attend for the sole purpose of education.

[trotsky]

3. Yeah, I'm baffled by this.

The people who won't vote for Democrats would like to see more laws based on their version of Christianity. They want to see abortion outlawed. They want women subservient to men. They want homosexuals executed, or just forced back in the closet. We, as a party, can't - and SHOULD NEVER - attempt to appeal to those religious desires.

The route to take instead is to try and educate people about how creating laws based on religion can end up backfiring on them. To help them realize that secularism benefits them MORE, which it most definitely does.

Used to be, schools had civics classes that helped educate people about the actual role and function of government. I don't think many schools do that anymore.