"Liberal believers are going to be the people who ultimately bring change to their own religions."

[Douglas Carpenter]

100. There are all kinds of movements and tendencies within the Catholic church and other religious

groups that challenge many of their retrograde doctrines and offer a place for people of faith and those who feel attached to their heritage but committed to social justice. Countless numbers of Catholics and other Christians and other religious groups have played a pivotal role in the anti-slavery movement, the women's suffrage movement, the labor movement the civil rights movement and countless other movements for social justice. The good works done around world by Catholics and other people of faith can be so casually dismissed truly brings shame and discredit on the secular left. . There are many reasons why a person might stay with their religious heritage or even convert to one. The world is just not simple. To be dismissive of hundreds of millions of people - many of whom are allies or potential allies of the progressive cause is utterly foolish and harmful. Hostility toward religion and perceived hostility toward religion is the number one factor in the United States that has turned the left into a permanent minority. Besides the crass insensitivity - it is political suicide and it amounts to handing the right-wing a permanent position of dominance on a silver platter and handing over to them the keys to power forever.