Tony Carnes' piece in Christianity Today, "Dean Vows to Reach Evangelicals as Democratic Leaders," aptly demonstrates that conservative evangelical Christians, too, can be bitchy. With regal condescension so trite it borders on camp, Carnes writes of a recent Democratic event he attended:
"In the gathering of Hispanic Democratic leaders, Gloria Nieto, vice chair of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Caucus, broke down in sobs as she lamented her feeling of rejection as a woman who had illegally married a woman in Boston. Responding to her wondering if the Democratic Party would still be a welcoming home for lesbians, Dean leaped off the stage into the audience to hug her. With a sob of his own catching his voice, he brought the audience to a standing ovation with his declaration, 'That's why I am a Democrat.' Many evangelicals may well respond, 'That's why we are not Democrats.'"
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It's unfortunate that Carnes' work end up as a hit piece capped with a cheap and easy play towards irrational, fear-based prejudices. (The lesbo law-breaker! That Dean embraced! Therefore: cooties?) In fact, parts of the article hint to what it might have been: a prescient glimpse of faith-related discussions and--probably--struggles within the Democratic Party as it rediscovers its populist voice.
Carnes' judgmentalism calls into question his trustworthiness as an observer of the DNC event. But, with that caveat in mind, I submit that some of what he relates should not be ignored, and generally confirms a deplorable reality about the Democratic Party: that the Party has let itself become a place where many Christians--even liberal evangelicals and life-long Democrats who are Christians--are uncomfortable.
This could spell continuing electoral doom. (Thankfully, Gov. Dean seems to recognize this.)
*One interviewed Party member, from the Texas delegation, tells Carnes: "I have a strong background in my faith--but that isn't necessarily to be quoted."
*Carnes notes that few "rank-and-file Democratic leaders had yet to catch a hold of Dean's new way of talking [in the language of religion and moral values.]"
*Carens: "Several state chairman (sic) polled by [Christianity Today] either declined to answer or professed that they didn't know of any evangelicals in their delegations."
*From Carnes' penultimate paragraph, before he slapped down his Icky Lesbians finale:
"The Rev. Zina Pierre, who forthrightly states her evangelical conviction, walked the Democrats out with her benediction that her party coworkers 'be not dismayed at their faces, the Republicans; they shall fight against thee ... but I am with thee.' However, after the chairs started to be stacked up and the clean-up crews swarmed in, the minister from First Baptist Church in Annapolis, Maryland, reflected on how the Democrats seemed to place evangelicals at the end of their attention. 'The party needs to put reaching evangelicals at the onset of a campaign, not at the end two weeks before election.' She also found it hard to name any evangelical allies who would know she was quoting from Jeremiah 1:17-18.... Pierre's role was relegated to a time when most Democrats were exhausted and streaming out of the auditorium...."