Christianity as "Conscience and Soul" of the Democratic Party?

Does the Democratic Party need more religion? Many think so, but their arguments are confused at best. The most prominent argument seems to be that more religion is necessary to attract votes — but isn't such pandering unethical? Why would religious voters accept the Democrats on such a basis? Less superficial is the idea that religion would provide the party with more values, but this is bigoted because it suggests that there can be no legitimate values without religion.

Atrios quotes Mara Vanderslice from a recent interview she did:

I'd love to be involved in continuing to build up the voices of faith in the party and providing the training and infrastructure on the ground to state parties, to future candidates, to reach out to these constituencies, because I just believe that the religious community can be the conscience and the soul of the Democratic Party, and the more we bring that back in, I believe, the stronger our party will be, the better we'll be able to represent our positive vision for the future, and I think it'll help us start winning elections again.

[emphasis added]

Atrios says that comments like this get his hackles up a bit — and why not? Let's take a closer look, especially at the emphasized portion. What does Mara Vanderslice mean by "religious communities"? I think it's pretty clear that she's talking about Christians. Even Mark Kleiman, who attempts and fails to defend Vanderslice, refers exclusively to "evangelical Christians" and "churches." When Democrats are told to "reach out" to religious voters, they are not being told to "reach out" to mosques, ashrams, or even synagogues. No, they are being told to "reach out" to white, evangelical Christians.

What does Mara Vanderslice mean by "conscience and soul" of the Democratic Party? Your conscience is that part which tells you whether your actions are moral or immoral. Your "soul" is what defines who you are, at your core. So if Christians and Christianity are the "conscience and soul" of the Democratic Party, then Christianity is what will define the moral boundaries of Democratic policy proposals and Christianity will define what the Democratic Party is at its core.

This shouldn't merely "raise hackles," it should be recognized as an exclusivist, supremacist, bigoted bit of political theology that has no place in a liberal democracy. This isn't a "narcissism of small differences." If a Republican said something similar it would be immediately condemned as a sign of the Christian Right trying to control the GOP, but since a liberal Democrat says it we should give it the benefit of the doubt? I don't think so — and that's why Mark Kleiman's defense of Vanderslice fails.

Furthermore, even if we try to be as generous as possible and pretend that there is nothing at all inappropriate in suggesting that Christianity define the morality and nature of the Democratic Party, we are still left with the fact that religious believers have completely failed to provide any moral direction in America recently. Regular churchgoers were more likely to support George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq that nonbelievers. Regular churchgoers are more likely to support the use of torture than nonbelievers. What sort of "conscience and soul" would attitudes like this really provide us with?

It's not so important if Vanderslice didn't quite her statement to be bigoted because it never should have been phrased that way if she really didn't look down upon nonbelievers. Bigoted language means as much as bigoted attitudes because language helps define the nature of debate as well as of people's ideas. Vanderslice was sending a clear message that shuts out nonbelievers — and that's probably the point because that's how you pander to religious believers in America today. Pandering to Christians involves telling Christians that they are special, that they are responsible for everything that's been great about America, and that only their Christianity will make America great in the future.

As Kos says, it's important for Democrats to talk about values, but "values" isn’t the same as "religion" except in the minds of bigots. Granted, many in America are bigoted in precisely such a manner and this has been exacerbated by Republicans who act like Christianity is the only possible source of legitimate moral values. Democrats, however, should not make things worse still by doing much the same thing. Although it will lose them some votes, they should take the high ground and refuse to define themselves by a single religion or by religion generally.