In a surprisingly candid piece, Michelle Boorstein reports for the Washington Post on the Democrat's retreat from their much-vaunted "faith outreach."If 2008 was the year Democrats finally got religion, will 2010 be the year the party loses it again?
This is the worry among some religious progressives, who worked to transform the image of Democrats from wary -- or even hostile -- toward religion to a party that hired faith consultants, advertised regularly on Christian radio and featured candidates, including Barack Obama, who spoke openly about their relationship with God...
"It's a mystery to everyone what happened to Democratic faith outreach in the last year," said Rebecca Sager, a Loyola Marymount University professor who writes and teaches about the religious progressive movement. "There is sort of this, 'We worked so hard and made so much progress, and 2008 seemed like this great year, and then what happened?' "
The election happened, of course.
And since Barack Obamas's only interest in the Christian community was to dupe them into voting for him, he was more than eager to drop them once he moved into the White House. Thus, he quickly moved to promote abortion and homosexual privileges and Islam -- while moving against Christian education, rights of conscience, freedom of religious speech, protection of marriage, etc.
And about those staffers who were supposed to lead Obama's faith outreach when he was President? They were dismissed or given other duties when he took office. But, and you've already guessed it, DNC Chairman Tim Kaine said that plans are underway to revive the faith outreach department "as the fall election season gets closer."
Somehow, I don't think that it's going to work as well as last time.
