How Would Jesus Vote?

[davidinalameda]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/22/AR2008022202386.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

As an evangelical who worked in Democratic politics before entering journalism, I'm used to getting looks from liberals who are embarrassed for me when I use the E-word to describe myself. Confusion flickers across their faces as they instantly reassess my political leanings and intelligence. People who have known me for years start asking whether I watch Fox News and brace for spontaneous proselytizing.

And then there is the more dangerous sort of bias. A few months ago, while participating in an early-morning panel discussion in the heart of Manhattan, I was startled fully awake when a man stood up to declare that Democrats who reached out to religious voters, especially evangelicals, were akin to those who collaborated with the Nazis. I put on a sweet smile of Christian charity and counted to 10.

Comments like that explain why so many of us liberals who also happen to be evangelicals have stayed in the closet for so long. It is hard to overcome decades of suspicion, much of it richly earned by leaders of the religious right who used faith in the cause of a political power grab and in the name of intolerance and fear. But the lingering misconceptions are also painful reminders of the price people like myself have paid for staying silent while others claimed a monopoly on faith. And the country has paid, too.

That thought seems to have been on Sen. Barack Obama's mind last month, at the end of a presidential debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C. "There have been times," Obama said, "when our Democratic Party did not reach out as aggressively as we could to evangelicals because the assumption was, well, they don't agree with us on choice, or they don't agree with us on gay rights, and so we just shouldn't show up. . . . And that means that people have a very right-wing perspective in terms of what faith means and of defining our faith."

[comradebillyboy]

1. Jesus would vote for continued Roman rule over the

providences of Palestine, Judea and Samaria.

[bleowheels]

2. I saw this same headline on the sign outside of a church in 2004

It said something like: "Pro Choice or Pro life, How would Jesus vote?" I wanted to write that pastor and state: "Pro War or Pro Peace, How would Jesus Vote?"

At the time, my state, South Dakota, was voting on a bill to restrict a woman's right to choose. The bill ultimately failed mostly because it didn't include an option for a dying woman. But, I find it so ironic that so many of the same people who will support a war, are so vehemently opposed to a woman's right to choose.