Converting The Heathens

by digby

People can say I’m being hysterical all they want, but I honestly feel that a woman’s right to choose is about to go the way of the death penalty as a fundamental liberal value. The party is dying to find a reason to throw in the towel. And people like this are helping them do it:

Party strategists and nonpartisan pollsters credit the operative, Mara Vanderslice, and her 2-year-old consulting firm, Common Good Strategies, with helping a handful of Democratic candidates make deep inroads among white evangelical and churchgoing Roman Catholic voters in Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Exit polls show that Ms. Vanderslice’s candidates did 10 percentage points or so better than Democrats nationally among those voters, who make up about a third of the electorate. As a group, Democrats did little better among those voters than Senator John Kerry’s campaign did in 2004.

[…]

Ms. Vanderslice’s success in 2006 is a sharp rebound from her first campaign, in 2004. She was hired, at age 29, to direct religious outreach for Mr. Kerry in his presidential campaign and was then quickly shoved aside, a casualty of a losing battle to persuade him to speak more openly about his Catholic faith, even if it meant taking on the potentially awkward subject of his support for abortion rights.

The midterm elections were a “proof point” for arguments that Ms. Vanderslice had made two years before, said Mike McCurry, a Democratic consultant and former spokesman for President Bill Clinton who worked with Ms. Vanderslice on the Kerry campaign. For the Democrats, Mr. McCurry said, Ms. Vanderslice and her company “were the only ones taking systematic, methodical steps to build a religious component in the practical campaign work.”

Ah yes, all the usual suspects. Mara Vanderslice, the Jim Wallis acolyte, is a little bit more open about her agenda sometimes, if not in the NY Times:

I also believe that the Democratic Party — we really need to engage in a more thoughtful debate on the abortion issue in this country. I can’t tell you how many times I had conversations with people of deep faith [who] said, “I support you [and] everything you are doing on every other issue except for this one.” It is such a painful and divisive issue in this country, and we have, therefore, avoided it, I think, to a large extent. I don’t think that does service for us. I believe that we need to work across our differences to find ways to reduce unwanted pregnancies. There are a million and a half abortions every year in this country, and no one can feel that’s a good place for us to be. But we need to support the programs that we know reduce the need for abortions. Abortion rates went down to their lowest levels in 25 years under President Clinton; abortion rates went up under President Reagan. We need to work together to support the programs that will help women choose life, and I think we need to be open to a new dialogue on this issue.

We need to support the programs that will help women choose life. She slipped that one right in there, didn’t she? It’s hardly a ringing endorsement of a woman’s right to own her own body. In fact, I don’t hear even one tiny acknowledgement in that argument that it’s important to defend the right to abortion. All I hear is smooth PR copy.

This kind of slick talk (and it is slick) reminds me of the anti-abortion groups who also claim they are just trying to “open a dialog.” Here’s Mary Kay Culp, preident of Kansans For Life on NOW a while back:

MARY KAY CULP: Well, he [Samuel Alito] looks like he’s a real careful– a real careful, thoughtful, analytical guy, and I like that. And– because I’m a little tired of this being portrayed as if he has an agenda, that all of a sudden, poof is going to happen if he gets on the court.

BRANCACCIO: Agenda being getting rid of Roe v. Wade?

MARY KAY CULP: Exactly. I don’t think that that’s going to happen. And if it does, all it means is that the issue comes back to the states.

BRANCACCIO: But, with all the work that you’ve been doing in Kansas for all these years, don’t you think that if it becomes a State’s matter that in Kansas like that (SNAP) you’ll get rid of abortion? Huh?

MARY KAY CULP: No. I don’t. Unh-uh. I don’t think that’ll happen in the states. But, what can happen is a real discussion. What can happen are committee hearings in your Senate and your House where witnesses are called– witnesses who have had abortions– witnesses on both side of the issue. And, it can be heard — the most frustrating thing about Roe is that it just slammed the door. When you try to get a State law passed even to regulate just a little bit, or partial birth abortion, anything, a legislator will tell you– “Well, you know– we can’t do that under Roe versus Wade anyway.”

[…]

BRANCACCIO: I don’t understand how Kansas wouldn’t– ban abortion quit quickly after that. What do you know about the state of that debate in your state…

MARY KAY CULP: It isn’t that. It’s just that I know how the political system works. Then you can have real discussion. Then every– both sides are gonna get aired, and if the media’s fair about it, both sides are gonna get aired. That– you know, that’s a question. But at least democracy will have a chance to work on it. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything either way.

In case anyone wonders what Mary Kay really thinks about the political process and the judiciary and the wonderful dialog we’re all going to have, check this out:

Hours after the outgoing attorney general of Kansas charged one of the nation’s few late-term abortion providers with illegally aborting viable fetuses, a judge dismissed the charges, ruling Friday that the attorney general had overstepped his authority.

Atty. Gen. Phill Kline angrily vowed to get the charges reinstated.

“This is war,” said Mary Kay Culp, executive director of the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life.

The flurry of activity marks the latest twist in a long and bitter fight over abortion in Kansas.

That “reasonable” woman who appeared on NOW talking about “dialog” was the staunchest supporter of that creepy nutball Kline, who was uncermoniously booted from his job by the people of Kansas in November. She will say anything, as you can easily see by a simple Google search; her words are well tailored to each different audience. The woman is a political operative.

I believe that Ms Vanderslice is doing much the same thing, although she’s working within the Democratic party rather than as an outside activist:

Dr. Welton Gaddy, president of the liberal Interfaith Alliance, said her encouragement of such overt religiosity raised “red flags” about the traditional separation of church and state.

“I don’t want any politician prostituting the sanctity of religion,” Mr. Gaddy said, adding that nonbelievers also “have a right to feel they are represented at the highest levels of government.”

To Ms. Vanderslice, that attitude is her party’s problem. In an interview, she said she told candidates not to use the phrase “separation of church and state,” which does not appear in the Constitution’s clauses forbidding the establishment or protecting the exercise of religion.

“That language says to people that you don’t want there to be a role for religion in our public life,” Ms. Vanderslice said. “But 80 percent of the public is religious, and I think most people are eager for that kind of debate.”

What does she hope to accomplish with a “debate” about the separation of church and state? The only people who are upset by that phrase are the far right. Why should Democrats accomodate such a thing? It’s politically idiotic.

“God’s love was so much stronger than any of my doubts,” she said, acknowledging that like some other young evangelicals she still struggles with common evangelical ideas about abortion, homosexuality and the literal reading of Scripture.

[…]

She and Mr. Sapp, 30, a Presbyterian minister’s son and a fellow evangelical with a divinity degree from Duke, set out to test the rejected ideas. They organized workshops in which Democratic candidates practiced delivering short statements about their faith or their moral values. They urged Democrats to meet with even the most staunchly conservative evangelical pastors in their districts.

They persuaded candidates not to avoid controversial subjects like abortion, advising those who supported abortion rights to speak about reducing demand for the procedure.

And they cautioned against the approach of many liberal Christians, which is to argue that Jesus was interested only in social justice and not in sexual morality.

“The Gospel has both in it,” Mr. Sapp said. “You can’t act like caring about abortion and family issues makes you a judgmental fool.”

I really wish the Dems would stop bullshitting themselves for five minutes and deal with reality instead of this public relations and marketing nonsense. These people want the party to become socially conservative. As, apparently, do a whole bunch of other Democrats for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that they hope to peel off some swing voters whom they have been persuaded would be more than willing to vote Democratic if the bitches and the fags would just STFU and get with the program. This nice young woman will show everybody how it’s done.

Fine. Let’s have that “debate” all these busybodies say they want to have. Let’s see some real figures that show that a whole bunch of swing voters are clamoring for more religion in politics and that the nation is hungering for two socially conservative political parties. But before we have it I wish that Democratic candidates would search their consciences and ask themselves if they really want to further empower religious fundamentalists who “struggle with abortion and gay rights and the literal interpretation of the Bible?” And if they reach way down and find that they don’t really care about any of that, maybe they could look at the polls and recognize that they are going against the majority in this country, including many of the religious who are not social conservatives and believe in that old fashioned American value: “live and let live.”

A good part of this so-called religious awakening is hype. Consider this, from the Barna group which tracks religious opinion and trends:

Major Christian Leaders Are Widely Unknown,
Even Among Christians

In today’s celebrity culture, even the most well-known ministers remain relatively obscure. Perhaps the best example of this phenomenon is Rick Warren. Pastor of a megachurch in southern California and author of the bestselling book, The Purpose Driven Life, he has appeared on countless radio and television programs and on the cover of numerous magazines in the past several years. His book, with sales exceeding 25 million copies, is reportedly the biggest selling non-fiction book in U.S. history (with the exception, ironically, of the Bible). Yet, despite such accomplishments, Mr. Warren remains unknown to most adults in this country. Three of out every four adults (72%) say they have never heard of him, including two out of every three born again Christians (63%). Among those who recognize his name, he has an average favorable-to-unfavorable ratio of 2:1. (In contrast, several other individuals evaluated had ratios of better than 10:1.)

Another example is James Dobson, the Christian psychologist whose radio program regarding family matters reaches the largest audience of any religious personality. Almost six out of every ten adults (57%) said they had never heard of Dr. Dobson; in fact, nearly half of all born again Christians said they did not know who he was. Among those familiar with Dr. Dobson, 27% had a favorable impression and 8% had an unfavorable view. However, among evangelical Christians – the small but well-chronicled segment that is clearly Dr. Dobson’s core constituency – his rating was 69% favorable, 4% unfavorable, and 21% who had never heard of him. (The other 6% did not have an opinion of him.)

Meanwhile:

The survey showed that evangelical Christians have significantly different views about public figures than do other Americans, including non-evangelical born again Christians.

Compared to other people groups, evangelicals were better informed about and awarded higher favorability ratings to all five of the religious leaders tested, as well as to President Bush. When compared to born again Christians who were not evangelical, they held considerably more negative views of Ms. O’Donnell, Mr. Gibson, President Clinton and newscaster Katie Couric. They were also much less familiar with country singer Tim McGraw

The fact that evangelicals seem to be more conservative than everyone else in the country, including all the other Christians, may just mean that they are, you know, conservatives. Since they are also more likely to be southern and hold other views that are hostile to the party that represents the rest of the country, they just don’t seem like a good bet for the Democratic party. It’s just insane to try to appeal to the people least likely to support you!

The fact is that Americans are comfortable with religion and most feel that their leaders should believe in God. Bible verses and religious language are nice shorthand ways of conveying values and spiritualism. Many of the messages in the Bible are fully in keeping with liberal values and can be called up to support a politician’s positions without any controversy. Nobody is saying otherwise. But most people in this country are simply not as engaged in this deep theologically based political conversation as these hustlers would have us believe.

In fact, if the Democrats want to get involved in religion, I would suggest that they start looking at what the right is doing to the mainline and liberal churches in this country. It’s as bad as anything that’s happened in politics and it’s happening under the radar. If people like Ms Vanderslice would really like to help Christians in this country feel like they have a seat at the Democratic table, maybe she should spend a little less time cultivating the right wingers who already hate half the people in the Democratic party and concentrate a little of that energy in helping the liberal Christians who are struggling to survive the onslaught. I’d even help, and I’m not religious at all.

But Vanderslice and her friends aren’t actually liberals are they? They are missionaries going into the heart of darkness to convert the heathens.

Update: Frederick Clarkson, Steve Benen and Pastordan have more.

UpdateII: BTD at Talk Left does some interesting numbers crunching.

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