Yes, there are evangelical Democrats out there

[rox63]

I'm not one of them. But they are out there, and the Dem candidates should reach out to them on areas where they share values.

I’m an Evangelical and a Democrat. Really.

By Amy Sullivan - Special to The Washington Post

As an evangelical who worked in Democratic politics before entering journalism, I’m used to getting looks from liberals who are embarrassed for me when I use the E-word to describe myself. Confusion flickers across their faces as they instantly reassess my political leanings and intelligence. People who have known me for years start asking whether I watch Fox News and brace for spontaneous proselytizing.

And then there is the more dangerous sort of bias. A few months ago, while participating in an early-morning panel discussion in the heart of Manhattan, I was startled fully awake when a man stood up to declare that Democrats who reached out to religious voters, especially evangelicals, were akin to those who collaborated with the Nazis. I put on a sweet smile of Christian charity and counted to 10.

Comments like that explain why so many of us liberals who also happen to be evangelicals have stayed in the closet for so long. It is hard to overcome decades of suspicion, much of it richly earned by leaders of the religious right who used faith in the cause of a political power grab and in the name of intolerance and fear. But the lingering misconceptions are also painful reminders of the price people like myself have paid for staying silent while others claimed a monopoly on faith. And the country has paid, too.

That thought seems to have been on Sen. Barack Obama’s mind last month, at the end of a presidential debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C. “There have been times,” Obama said, “when our Democratic Party did not reach out as aggressively as we could to evangelicals because the assumption was, well, they don’t agree with us on choice, or they don’t agree with us on gay rights, and so we just shouldn’t show up. ... And that means that people have a very right-wing perspective in terms of what faith means and of defining our faith.”

~snip~

Read the whole article at the link: http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2008/02/24/news/nation_and_world/doc47c148e2e1daa786346829.txt

[southlandshari]

1. Thank you for posting this

Definitely food for thought!

:thumbsup:

[liberal N proud]

2. More than you think

Many have sat in church for the last 8 years or more and silently listened to the crap. Many others have had to endure the attacks from the fundamentalist who proclaim in their faces that if your a Christian, you must be republicon.

My 14 year old daughter went to a church bowling event on Sunday. When I picked her up she was talking to me on the way home and one of her comments was that one of the other kids asked her if she was a Democrat (don't worry, my kids have made up their own minds on this already). When she told the other kid she was, he said great, I can talk to someone. The age group was high school youth group.

[Midlodemocrat]

4. My daughter had the same experience on a retreat a couple of weeks ago.

They stayed up until 3AM talking and it turned out that all of the peer leaders, (kids who were confirmed last year) are Democrats.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. I think this article shows

that the situation in regards to evangelicals is not clear cut--that there are liberals in that group is, to me, heartening, because it means that they are thinking for themselves (instead of swallowing the rantings of high profile ministers) and take seriously the message laid down by Jesus, which is a progressive one.