Time magazine has a lengthy piece on Democrats and religion called, "How the Democrats Got Religion." (HT: Drudge) (Btw, the original title on the web yesterday was "Leveling the Praying Field.") It focuses on efforts by Democrats (most notably, Sens. Obama, Clinton, and Edwards) to attract voters who are religious. There is certainly an attempt at balance in the article, but the folks at the DNC must be pretty happy. The article, penned by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, claims, "The Democrats are so fired up, you could call them the new Moral Majority."
"The new Moral Majority"? Yikes. The article devotes substantial space to showing how Democrats are trying to muster up a majority to win elections, but what about the "moral" part? Gibbs and Duffy neglect a number of important issues and episodes regarding Democrats and religion. Witness:
1. John Edwards and anti-Catholicism:
How on earth do you compose a piece thousands of words long on Democrats and religion without mentioning John Edwards' gross episode with anti-Catholic bigotry earlier this year? (See this and this.) Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, who worked on Edwards' campaign, had a history of spewing obscene venom at Christians and Catholics. (Read their comments here.) After the remarks were publicized, John Edwards still decided to retain the two women. Finally, just as the Catholic League was set to run a large ad in the New York Times, the pair resigned from his campaign. (Marcotte first, and then McEwan later.)
Does Time have amnesia? How do Edwards' actions square with an image of a Christian?
2. Time (emphasis mine): "[S]keptical factions inside the party's power structure [argue] that nonreligious voters are an even more vital part of the Democratic coalition now—and that religious outreach is a waste of precious resources and time."
Time barely scratches the surface on this. It does not address the fact that there is a real and significant segment among Democrats that is flat-out hostile to Christians. Folks like Marcotte and McEwan are not anomalies. (Witness the reception that folks like Rosie O'Donnell get when slamming Christians and/or Christianity. And here are some screenshots of comments left at Democratic Underground after Rev. Falwell died in May: a, b, c. And some anti-Catholic remarks posted by readers at another liberal site only last week: a, b, c.) The Time article does not even come close to going deep enough on this.
3. "Kids' schools, car's fuel efficiency, and the crisis in Darfur":
Reports Time (emphasis mine):
The most conservative white Protestants, [John Green, below] says, are all but off-limits to the Democrats. But then there are more than 22 million voters he calls "freestyle Evangelicals," worried about not only their eternal souls but also their kids' schools, their car's fuel efficiency and the crisis in Darfur.
The implication is that conservative evangelicals do not care about a) schools, b) car's fuel efficiency, and c) the crisis in Darfur. Here are some facts about these issues as they've occurred under President Bush, whom conservative Evangelicals helped elect to office.
- Federal education spending is at an enormous level. (See the charts at the Department of Education. Keep scrolling.) By 2004, Dept. of Education funding had grown 58% under President Bush since Clinton had left office (source).
- The EPA changed the way it estimates miles per gallon (MPG) to give new car buyers a more realistic and accurate idea of what kind of mileage their car will likely get. (Here.)
- Since the Darfur conflict began, the United States has "provided more than $1.7 billion in humanitarian and peacekeeping assistance." "The U.S. is the world’s largest single donor to the people of Darfur." (source)
4. How white Evangelicals vote:
Says Time:
[T]he Republican lock on Evangelicals may be breaking. The percentage of white Evangelicals who self-identify as Republicans has declined from roughly 50% in 2004 to about 44% this past February, according to [the Pew Forum's senior fellow John] Green. Now the number is closer to 40% as more Evangelicals choose to label themselves independents. "There is a loosening of the Republican coalition, particularly among people under 30," Green says, "but it is not yet a movement toward the Democrats. It is a small but real change."
Really? Look at what this December 2006 article in Christianity Today reported in examining the 2006 elections:
White evangelical Protestants, who have recently bolstered the GOP base, did not desert the party. Republicans actually captured 70 percent of their vote, while Democrats received 28 percent. Compared to the 2004 House races, when evangelicals cast 74 percent of their ballots for Republicans and 25 percent for Democrats, the small shift suggested the party's base had stayed home—with the GOP.
"We didn't really see a lot of change in the voting patterns of evangelicals," said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life ...
Both articles quote the same guy! Apparently, how people "identify" themselves versus how people actually vote (what really counts) can be two different things.
5. The Supreme Court Partial-Birth Abortion Decision:
In April of this year, the Supreme Court upheld a federal law that outlawed an abortion procedure called "Intact D&E." What is "Intact D&E"? (CAUTION: Very graphic description) After dilating the woman's cervix, the abortionist grabs the unborn fetus with forceps, pulling it down until he "he deliver[s] the baby's body and the arms--everything but the head." Then, "the surgeon takes a pair of blunt curved Metzenbaum scissors." He "then forces the scissors into the base of the skull or into the foramen magnum [and then] spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening." Finally, he "removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents." (Or as a nurse described it, "He suck[s] the baby's brains out.") (Source: GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL v. CARHART) You can see why Congress called it "a brutal and inhumane procedure" and voted to outlaw it.
Yet after the Supreme Court upheld the law allowing the ban, Barack Obama said, "I strongly disagree with [the] ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women." ... Hillary said, "It is precisely this erosion of our constitutional rights that I warned against when I opposed the nominations of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito." ... Edwards said, "I could not disagree more strongly with today's Supreme Court decision." (Source: lifesite.net)
How on earth do the three candidates harmonize their beliefs in the teachings of Jesus Christ with this utterly savage and barbaric procedure? It would've been great to see Time address something like this in the article, but they didn't.
6. Time: "Hillary Clinton called abortion 'tragic' and said she dreamed of the day when the procedure would never have to be performed."
Sen. Clinton's words prompt numerous questions: What is it about abortion that makes it "tragic" for you? What specifically would you do to make abortion rare or so it "would never have to be performed"? How about supporting mandatory viewing of ultrasounds before all abortions? How about parental notification for minors seeking abortions? (Planned Parenthood (PP) strongly opposes these measures. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood Advocates has endorsed Mrs. Clinton in her Senate runs (pic); and Sen. Clinton has a 100% rating from PP (source). Hillary has also been endorsed by Emily's List, a very wealthy pro-choice group.)
Time does not forcefully address Sen. Clinton's rhetoric. (The magazine takes a different approach.)
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There's more, but I think you get the point.
As with the Democrats themselves on religion, the Time article is a lot of ... not a lot.
