And Then What?

Ditto LeMew (still the smartest French kitten in all the land). I, too, don’t understand how, exactly, Democrats should "reach out to disaffected evangelicals,” beyond what they’re already doing, including, not least of which, being an almost exclusively Christian party. If evangelicals still aren’t willing to get on board with the Democrats at this point, it’s either because they’re still held in the thrall of a spin machine that turns grand fictions like “liberals want to criminalize Christmas” into conventional wisdom, a situation over which Democrats have very little control, or because they don’t care for the particular brand of Christianity practiced by most Democrats, which isn’t something the Democrats can do much to change, either. Are they supposed to visit the home of every disaffected evangelical and reeducate them on the fundamentals of Christianity? “See here, Jim—Christians are actually meant to give a shit about the poor!”

At some point, people like Amy Sullivan are just going to have to face the fact that there are a lot of evangelicals who are fucked off with the Republican Party because they’re not conservatively Christian enough—and there’s no way in hell the Democrats are going to appeal to those people who are constantly whinging about the marginalization of Christians. And why should they try? Those people are barking lunatics.

We’ve got a Christian president with an almost unanimously Christian administration who relentlessly pander to conservative Christians, including nominating three openly Christian justices to the Supreme Court (two of whom made it to the bench), an almost entirely Christian Congress who start each session with a prayer, guaranteed freedom of religion, money that says “In God We Trust,” a pledge of allegiance that describes us as “one nation under God,” television networks who will accept advertising from conservative religious groups but not liberal political groups, schools who are incorporating a religious belief into science classes, gays being denied marriage in order to protect its “sanctity,” conscience clauses for pharmacists and healthcare providers, religion-based residential communities being built, Museums of Creationism springing up, laws still on the books that respect Christians’ holy day (like in Indiana, where you still can’t shop for a car or buy booze on a Sunday), churches not required to pay taxes, Christmas recognized as a national holiday, and on…and on…and on. Anyone who looks at the American landscape and sees a problem for Christians is delusional.

Meanwhile, you couldn’t get elected to national office as an atheist or pagan, but I don’t see any hand-wringing about how the Democrats (or Republicans) need to reach out to them—probably because atheists and pagans don’t give a shit what box you check on a form as long you share their policy views. Neither, as it happens, does any Christian (or Jew, or Muslim, or Buddhist, or Hindu, or Sikh, or agnostic, or Pastafarian) who doesn’t want to legislate their religious beliefs.

I don't give a good shit about someone who needs pathetic demonstrations that the people for whom they’re voting are sufficiently religious. If you don’t believe that someone who doesn’t subscribe to an approved denomination can be moral, and do believe that someone who simply assures you he’s a Christian, even if he doesn’t act like it, must be moral, then you’re a fucking idiot, and the last thing we need in this country is another party who contorts itself into an unrecognizable shape to placate the obstinately idiotic.