Religion & The Democratic Party

Religion is a contentious issue in American politics. It shouldn't be, and in fact the separation of church and state is, in part, designed to prevent religion from becoming a matter that divides people politically. Nevertheless that's what has happened - and it seems to be having a negative effect on the Democratic Party as well.

Yolanda Young writes in an editorial that appears in USA Today:

Increasingly, groups under the Democratic umbrella have diametrically opposing views: a working-class Catholic Latino who opposes abortion; a black male activist who's against gays marrying; a Muslim who prefers there be no Bible group in public school. To coexist, all are forced to make pacts with the devil. ...In theory, many people support equal rights and protections for gays, a woman's right to choose, especially in cases of incest or rape, and freedom of religion. But when these practices are taken to their logical conclusions - say, gays marrying, a teenager having an abortion without a parent's consent, or taking "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance - even many liberal thinkers balk.

Young asks whether Democrats can keep all of those groups together, and that is an interesting question. But there is an addition issue here as well: it's not simply that the Democratic Party includes very different groups, but that many in those groups support key ideas in theory more than they do in practice. Thus, they support gay rights and abortion rights in theory, but not so much when it actually comes to exercising and protecting those rights.

Is that a failing of the Democratic Party or simply a failure of human beings? It is surely the latter, because we all can be accused of not honoring principles when it comes to actual practice, at least from time to time. It is also a failure of the Democratic Party, at least insofar as it is responsible for educating members about what its core principles mean and require.

Thus, the problem for the Democratic Party may not be a matter of convincing divergent groups to stick together despite their differences (although that is definitely true as well); rather, the problems is convincing people that certain principles are important enough to hold and should be defended even when you don't personally approve of the outcome. In other words, people have to be convinced that the principle of free speech must be defended, even if that means defending someone who uses their right to free speech in order to espouse racist ideas.

Read More:

• Recent Books on Free Speech
• Court Decisions on Free Speech and Censorship