[lbo-talk] Al From Beats Tambourine

[Nathan Newman]

Why is this bad advice?  Large majorities of the population are religious
in this country.  Figuring out how to appeal to those groups based on
religious appeals by progressive religious activists seems like a
no-brainer.  That doens't even require changing any substantive views, even
on social issues; it just requires messengers and active organizing among
religious voters by progressive religious organizers.  This is already done
regularly in black churches.  Expanding that effort more systematically to
white and latino churches hardly seems like "kool-aid drinking" advice.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carl Remick" <carlremick at hotmail.com>

[This is the best advice anyone has offered since the Rev. Jim Jones
suggested sampling the grape-flavored Kool-Aid.]

November 17, 2004

Some Democrats Believe the Party Should Get Religion

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Bested by a Republican campaign emphasizing Christian faith, some Democrats
are scrambling to shake off their secular image, stepping up efforts to
organize the "religious left" and debating changes to how they approach the
cultural flashpoints of same-sex marriage and abortion.

Some call the election a warning. "You can't have everybody who goes to
church vote Republican; you just can't," Al From, founder of the Democratic
Leadership Council, said last week at a forum on the election.

Religious traditionalists including Dr. Richard Land, president of the
Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the conservative Southern
Baptist
Convention, and Jim Wallis of the liberal evangelical group Sojourners say
Democratic officials are calling them for advice on reaching conservative
Christians. And they and some other theologically orthodox supporters of
Mr.
Bush say it may not take much for Democrats to make inroads among their
constituency, if the party demonstrates a greater friendliness to religious
beliefs and even modestly softens its support for abortion rights. ...

<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/politics/17democrats.html?hp&ex=11006676
00&en=ddc2e67a94260e10&ei=5094&partner=homepage>

Carl

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