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You can’t ignore religion, even if you feel the dangers or unintended consequences of religion in public policy making and politics. You cannot underestimate the effect of religion on public life if you believe that religion is a private issue. To believe that one's religious beliefs are personal and that America is a secular country does not practically make it impossible for those beliefs to be the basis for government policies. This is something that we, Iranian liberal/democrats, learned in a quarter of a century.
Tuning more to Evangelical radio stations and increase of churchgoers, even in the so-called blue states, is a sign that progressive forces should take into account, if they want to grab the majority in congress and presidency in 2006 and 2008. Democrats are losing votes even in the working- and middle-class neighborhoods to ignoring the religious concerns of the Americans and not addressing them in a suitable way. Progressive forces in the U.S. need to present a democratic/liberal interpretation of religion that may evolve into a national force.
Democrats may react to the interrelationship of the election output and religion in four different ways: 1) to shake off their secular image and stepping up efforts to organize the "religious left" to have churchgoers vote for them by changing their policy on how to handle sensitive issues like abortion and same sex marriage, 2) to demonstrate a greater friendliness to religious beliefs without giving up support for abortion rights and gay civil union, 3) to stay the course and have the same policies toward religion while emphasizing the religious imperatives behind pushing for real health care reform and improving education, tolerance, taking position against war and its implications, fighting poverty and promoting social justice, speaking out on human and civil right and environmental issues and alternatives to abortion, and criticizing the religious rights’ claims on morality and religiosity to establish the party's spiritual credentials, and 4) presenting a new inclusive reading of religion, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, etc. which gather people with different moral and religious outlooks under one umbrella.
The forth reaction is something more than rephrasing positions in more moral and religious language. The party needs more religious language as well as new positions on the role of religion in public life. The party should publicly welcome opponents of abortion and same sex marriage into its ranks as well as their proponents. There is no need to stay in one side and bend in its opposition to certain abortion restrictions or certain gay rights. Tactics like shifting the debate from the legality to the frequency of the abortion procedure or moderately pro-choice/moderately pro-life doe not work in Bush world.
Republicans are working for rich + powerful + high status groups, while justifying their cause by resort to religion. A large section of poor and lower class people in the U.S. voted for Republicans, even though their economic policies troubled them. If faith trumps everything else, even traditional party alignments among these groups, the progressive forces should think again of a religious reformation; this time presenting a liberal/democrat inclusive religion that has the spirit of a religion with the capacity to establish a religious community, to preach salvation and to give meaning to individuals’ lives and at the same time advocates civil rights, democracy, human rights, clean environment, sustained development, free flow of information, rule of law, and free market. Democrats have not been able to do so but are able to do this analytical and white collar job.
It is not enough for the Democrats to talk about their own values when confronted with value claiming of Republicans. The conservative rights establish its values on the basis of religious beliefs. The Democrats have to offer something to the Evangelicals and other religious communities who consider themselves liberal and find that something is missing from the mainstream image of their faith. Voicing a sense of alienation from the faith-based vote of the red states by the Democrats cannot help them in the next elections.
Democrats need to include a very diverse set of religious interpretations in their agendas, from "No to Homosexual Marriage" (though not as an amendment to the Constitution) to “Yes to Homosexual Marriage,” and from pro-life to pro-choice standpoints. If Black and White Democrats have been meaningful at the same time, pro-life and pro-choice democrats, and pro/con homosexual marriage Democrats are possible. Democrats have to find a way to not only include people who have concerns on health, education, job, access, and civil liberties, but include people who are concerned about moral and religious issues like marriage and abortion, in a very different way.
Reaching religious voters does not necessarily mean accepting federal financing of social services that hired on the basis of religion or coming along with all faith based initiatives. Democrats do not also need to take the party affiliation question out of play, if they have an inclusive policy on faith, marriage and abortion. This is the only way to neutralize the pull of Republicans directed towards minorities who have traditionally voted Democratic and attend Evangelical churches, mosques, and synagogues.
Majid Mohamamdi
Sociology of Religion Instructor, Department of Sociology
Stony Brook
