Left tries to regain religion, Democrats seek to offset GOP sway

[funflower]

When the state Republican Party asked North Carolina churches last month to give them copies of their directories, the request rested on an assumption: Although God may not be a Republican, a majority of his most faithful adherents are. Or as the GOP memo put it, "people who regularly attend church usually vote Republican when they vote."

The memo reopened questions about whether one political party has an advantage in appealing to the faithful.

Which is one reason why several hundred people attended a forum Friday in Duke Chapel to discuss how they can recast the political debate so it is not so dominated by religious conservatives.

"It is a conversation we undertake with a new urgency," said Rep. David Price of Chapel Hill, who is co-chairman of a House Democratic caucus on religion. Price has a Yale divinity degree and is the son of a Baptist lay preacher.

"We see the religious banner being co-opted by people whose religion and politics, we think, falls short of the kind of public witness we ought to make," Price said Friday on WUNC's State of Things program.

http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/414136.html

[W_HAMILTON]

1. Are most Christians fundy-types...

Or are most moderate?

I'd be all for Democrats trying to pull in the moderate Christian votes. But if they are going to bend over backwards like the GOP has to appease voters that will never vote DEM to begin with, I'll be pissed.

Since it seems like people have had success in dividing voters, what if the Democrats try and champion the moderate Christian types? Point out that love and compassion was what Jesus was all about, not the hate, bigotry, and prejudice that many Christians subscribe to today. Use the same "holier-than-thou" attitude that hardcore fundy-types use, but use it to promote "true" Christianity.

I would hope that most Christians are more moderate than the Pat Robertson types, and if that is the case, maybe a strategy like that would bring in more Christian voters, but better yet, more sensible Christian voters. But if Democrats have to support state-supported Christianity, and burn gay people at the stake to get Christian voters, I wouldn't want those type of people in the Democratic party to begin with.

[Redbear]

2. Well Spoken

Many core Democratic voters are swayed away by the GOP ploy that because they are christian they must vote GOP.

[beam me up scottie]

3. I agree with W HAMILTON,

if dems have to compromise the constitutional separation of church and state, they're no better than the reichwing.