rd magazine
* November 8, 2010
The Democrats, The Gays, And The Evangelicals Post by _Sarah Posner_
(http://www.religiondispatches.org/contributors/sarahposner/)
The Democrats _don't plan_
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/08/dems-to-cave-on-dadt-repe_n_780371.html?ref=tw)
to try to repeal Don't Ask Don't
Tell legislatively during the lame duck session of Congress, giving _the
term_ (http://www.senate.gov/reference/glossary_term/lame_duck_session.htm)
new meaning -- perhaps a different sort of _fowl_
(http://arekestall.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/chicken.jpg) .
There's no reason why the Democrats should be afraid of repealing this
policy that even the _gay Republicans_
(http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/candacechellew-hodge/3558/law_prof:_obama_under_no_obligation_to_appeal
_dadt) have sought to overturn in court. As I've _written_
(http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/3544/does_the_white_house_get_it)
before, "The only group that has more opponents of open service than
supporters is white evangelicals." Even Republicans support it by 47-43%
margin, according to a recent Pew poll.
One of the head-scratchers of last Tuesday's exit polls was how the
Republicans _increased_
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/05/gay-voters-republicans-doubled-2008_n_779111.html)
their share of the gay vote from 19% in
2008 to 31% this year.
On LGBT issues, there can be only two factors worrying the White House:
religion and religion, or the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the
evangelicals. The Democrats _lost ground _
(http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1791/2010-midterm-elections-exit-poll-religion-vote)
both with Catholics and
evangelicals from 2008 to 2010: 42% of Catholics voted Republican in 2008, and
54% in 2010. They lost ground with evangelicals, a group with which they made
modest gains in 2008. But they also lost ground with the unaffiliated,
with Republicans picking up ten percentage points in this group since 2006.
And, of course, this cycle the LGBT vote -- unenthused, apparently, with the
tepid Democratic support for their basic rights -- bizarrely migrated
toward to party that actively caters to the most virulently anti-gay elements
of
American religious life.
It's exactly that element, it seems, that the White House is fearful of
inciting. It's a loud element, a shrinking minority that the GOP seeks out,
even as younger evangelicals drift away from caring about gay marriage. It
keeps certain foot soldiers out and marching -- to the _polls_
(http://iowaindependent.com/46959/judicial-
retention-vote-sets-stage-for-push-to-overturn-gay-marriage) , to _fundraisers_
(http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/3612/mike_huckabee's_army_of_anti-gay_zealots/)
, to
_rallies_ (http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/654/“the_call”
_warns_of_antichrist_legislation_in_california_and_beyond) . But that didn't
stop a
third of gay voters from pulling the lever for the GOP.
Why does the White House care about the wrath of the religious right?
Surely tiptoeing around it didn't help Democrats whittle away at the
evangelical
vote. As an example of the sort of religious thing the White House cares
about, One News Now, the (_notoriously slanted_
(http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/3443/former_employees:_racism_&_abuse_in_leading_reli
gious_right_org/) ) "news" service of the American Family Association
_reported_ (http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=1215504) just
before the election that White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood
Partnerships Director Joshua DuBois reached out to David Jeremiah, a
California megachurch pastor who declared in an AFA news story that Obama "is
a
dangerous person" because he's moving the country toward "socialism."
The pair _reportedly agreed to disagree_
(http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=1216048) -- about whether
the president is a dangerous
socialist! Now that must have been a worthwhile conversation.
The White House wouldn't comment, but didn't deny that DuBois had phoned
Jeremiah. But the question is: why would he? Jeremiah is a protégé of
end-times populizer Tim LaHaye whose _website is devoted entirely to spinning
the
day's news in light of end-times prophecy._
(http://www.davidjeremiahministries.org/) His new book, _The Coming Economic
Armageddon_
(http://www.watchmenministry.com/article.php?id=920) , is a favorite of Glenn
Beck's, who
decreed it to be a "great" examination "of ties between the global financial
crisis and the new world order." (And for good measure, Jeremiah was a big
supporter of Proposition 8, California's gay marriage ban.)
Is this the _religious outreach_
(http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/3698/the_faith_outreach_canard/)
that was supposedly so
sorely missing from the Democratic strategy this year?
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
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Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
