In USA Today, reporter Jill Lawrence tackles the subject of the atheist left, and their new organization the Secular Coalition of America, but wait -- she never quite places them on the left. She reports they plan to be "part of broad coalitions fighting policies rooted in religious beliefs, such as limits on stem cell research and access to emergency contraception." (Notice Lawrence uses the liberal "EC" argot and doesn't note the embryo destruction in either goal.) Lawrence wrote their new leader, Laura Lipman Brown, was an advocate: "As a Nevada state senator from 1992 to 1994, she fought for gun control, gay rights and abortion rights." That would seem to earn the L word, but Lawrence doesn't use it.
Lawrence has no reluctance to label conservatives: "Christian conservatives wield enormous clout here through a network of advocacy groups and relationships with politicians from President Bush on down. Atheists, humanists and freethinkers, as Brown's constituents call themselves, are usually ignored." By whom? Perhaps by Republicans, but not at all by the Democrats. Haven't these people heard of the clout of the ACLU? Or People for the American Way? Aren't at least 30 Democrats going to vote against John Roberts because of lobbyists for the "free-thinker" agenda, the ones scared that "devout Catholic" Roberts might mix a little churchiness into the state?
Later, Lawrence adds comment from "Gary Bauer, a Christian conservative and former presidential candidate who now lobbies against gay marriage and for conservative values." Are we in danger of being redundant, a conservative who lobbies for conservative values? Yes.
