Reply #11: Yes, it's a good site [View All]

[ultraist]

I found this article interesting:

excerpts:
http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2005a/012805/012805h.php
Issue Date: January 28, 2005

Religion and values loom large as Democrats debate the future
By JOE FEUERHERD
Washington

Former Catholic Charities USA president J. Bryan Hehir, a priest of the Boston archdiocese, urged caution to those who would use religious imagery and language in the public sphere. Morality, which has an appeal beyond specific religious doctrines or denomination, said Hehir, should be the mediator between religion and politics in civil society. A pluralistic society such as the United States requires those who assert religious claims “to justify them to others who don’t share their faith” with pragmatic secular arguments, said Hehir.

Predictably, perhaps, one of the vanquished refused to give up the fight. Land’s declaration of victory “is an absurd statement because the majority of the people in this country don’t share most of the values of the so-called religious conservatives,” Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told NCR. Lynn noted that large majorities of Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade and support either marriage rights or civil unions for gay couples.

“The Democratic Party shouldn’t try to be Republican light on religion because it’s not going to work,” said Lynn. “There are plenty of good, solid morally responsible ethical positions that can be articulated by people who also happen to be Democrats. You don’t need to tie the idea that we have to take care of the poorest people before we give more to the wealthiest to direct religious experience. You don’t have to quote Jesus about it -- it’s just not an appropriate way to run a secular democracy.”