Democrats vs. Christians

Excerpts:

It’s easy to dismiss Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean as a hard-core ideologue, a loose-lipped lightening-rod for the Democratic Party, and a man who’s perfected a form of yoga which involves opening his mouth and inserting his foot to the knee.

It’s always a mistake to underestimate the opposition.

Dean’s seemingly casual remark that the GOP is "pretty much a white Christian party," was in fact a calculated appeal to his party’s Christian-hating base. It’s red-meat intentionally tossed to those who view Christians as public enemy #1 – a clear and present danger to democracy, liberty and tolerance.

Dean’s right, by the way. Most Republicans are white Christians (82 percent). So are most Americans (67 percent). Shame on the American people, for being so Caucasian and Christian!


[snip]

in reality, the DNC chair reflects the views of his militantly secularist party. In fact, compared to some of his colleagues, Dean is reticent here.

In a recent talk show interview, Democratic Senator Tom Harkin charged that Christian broadcasters are "sort of our home-grown Taliban." The Iowan added, "They have a direct line to God. And if you don’t tune into their line, you’re obviously on Satan’s line." On the other hand, the Democratic Party has long maintained that if you don’t agree with it on quotas, you’re a racist. If you dissent from its relentless drive to expand the welfare state, you hate the poor. If you’re not in favor of abortion-on-demand and comparable worth legislation, you’re a misogynist, etc.
During the debate on ending the permanent filibuster of Bush judges, Sen. Ken Salazar (a Colorado Democrat) called Focus on the Family and its founder James Dobson "the Anti-Christ." Does Sen. Salazar then believe that America’s most popular Christian broadcaster is "on Satan’s line"?
In a profile piece in The New Yorker, published last September, former Vice President Al Gore (who endorsed Dean for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination), observed that the faith of President George W. Bush was "the American version of the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia, in Kashmir, in religions around the world." In other words, because Bush talks about Jesus and wants to get religious groups involved in solving social problems, he is the moral equivalent of true-believers who persecute other faiths, and fanatics who behead hostages.
Getting down to the nitty-gritty, in an article in the December 1, 2003. issue of The American Prospect, Robert Reich (Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor) disclosed that the "evangelical right" despises religious liberty and tolerance and seeks nothing less than a "state-sponsored religion." Which would be what – the evangelicalism of James Dobson, the Catholicism of Pope Benedict XVI, the Methodism of President Bush or, perhaps, the Judaism of Dr. Laura Schlessinger? To ask the question is to highlight the absurdity of Reich’s pronouncement.
Thus, according to Dean Democrats:

The GOP has the agenda of Christian conservatives;
Christian conservatives are our homegrown Taliban – violence-prone fundamentalists who are identical to the Saudis and other Islamic militants;
And – oh, yes – Christian conservatives and their Republican lackeys seek to establish a state-sponsored religion which will, presumably, reprise the Salem witch trials and Spanish Inquisition.
And Democrats still can’t figure out why most Christians view them with emotions ranging from distrust to revulsion.