c. 2004 Religion News Service

BOSTON _ Democrats gathered here for their presidential nominating convention have a lot of issues on their minds, but for many, whether religion is the exclusive political property of the right is not among them.

“God teaches us in the Scriptures that he was the biggest social reformer on the Earth,” said Carmalee Brock, an Oklahoma delegate wearing a festive “Kerry-Okie” T-shirt. “The Scriptures tell us that, what better do they want?”

Brock, who describes herself passionately as a Christian, walks the line that the party hopes more will tread _ insistent on church-state separation, but personally motivated by religious faith.

She is among other delegates, party officials and religion and political scholars who are in Boston exploring the role of faith in politics generally and the Democratic Party in particular.

“Lo and behold, faith and religious perspectives can be a dimension in our public policy debates,” said Michael McCurry, the former Clinton press secretary who moderated a panel on religion and politics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the second day of the convention.

The panel, “Red God, Blue God” examined the so-called “God Gap,” which holds that Republicans are people of faith and Democrats are staunch secularists.

Some delegates resent the reputation.

“They think they’re the only ones that believe in God,” said Dave Wilson, a delegate from Orem, Utah, of Republicans.

Wilson, a Mormon, said Democrats tend to see religion as a private matter that should impact a person’s actions, but not necessarily be worn on a politician’s sleeve. “You don’t have to advertise that you’re religious, by your actions you prove it,” he said.

Religious leaders are urging the party to accept that religion can and should form a moral core for political candidates if they are people of faith.

It is “untrue” that Democrats are ardent secularists, said the Rev. James A. Forbes Jr., the pastor of New York City’s Riverside Church who was scheduled to address the convention Tuesday night (July 27).

“American people are asking theological questions,” Forbes said, particularly in the wake of such events as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But Sen. John Kerry, the party’s presidential nominee, has a “religion problem” because his support for abortion rights, combined with his reserved New England sensibility, make even his co-religionists largely unaware that he is a practicing Roman Catholic, said Shaun Casey, an assistant professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.

“Either folks see him as secular and anti-religious, or, to the extent he’s Catholic, he’s insincere,” said Casey, who proposed that Kerry seek out religious venues in which to frame issues from the economy to the environment to foreign policy in moral terms.

“It’s the fire that underlies why he wants to be president, whether that comes from an intellectual analysis or whether that comes from something deep and passionate that I might describe as his moral core or his soul,” Casey said.

Anna Greenberg, a pollster and political adviser who researches religion in public life, cautioned the panel that courting “religious voters” is a nuanced proposition.

“Religion is probably one of the most significant cleavages in American politics,” she said, noting that how frequently a person attends church is often a more accurate indicator of voting patterns than simple denominational affiliation. Polls that show that people who attend church more often tend to vote Republican and those who do not attend church regularly tend more toward Democratic candidates.

But Democrats are putting the message out that their ranks include many churchgoers and people of faith.

“Certainly we all have our values, many of those are based on faith,” said Janis Williams, who is a standing member of the Democratic platform committee from Pittsburgh and a convention delegate.

“Republicans don’t own patriotism, they also don’t own religion.”

Other party leaders agree that progressive politics and religion are not mutually exclusive.

“There is a strong history of progressivism and moral authority that springs from religious faith,” said John Podesta, the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Podesta, who served as chief of staff for President Clinton, told the panel that Democratic candidates _ principally Kerry _ should feel comfortable talking abut their faith, but only if they can do so in genuine ways.

Voters “can smell inauthenticity really quickly,” Podesta said. “It’s not just about packing up speeches with quotes from the Bible.”

Democrats are peppering the convention with events that call on religious voices, including the panel, a “People of Faith” luncheon and the presence of the Rev. Paul Sherry, who is the former president of the United Church of Christ, on a “Take Back America” panel that also includes leaders from the AFL-CIO, the National Education Association and the National Organization for Women.

The Kerry campaign has also established a “People of Faith” page on its official Web site, and the DNC named the Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson the senior adviser to the campaign for religious outreach.

At the same time as religion is emerging in Democratic politics though, delegates from across the country widely reported that they believe strongly in the separation of church and state _ even if they themselves are religious and feel that their faith shapes their political opinions.

This phenomenon does not surprise scholars like John Green, who tracks voting patterns in religious communities.

“There are any number of people that tend to interpret that involvement of religion in politics as a threat to the separation of church and state,” said Green, the director of the Bliss Institute at the University of Akron.

The challenge for Democrats, Green said, is to hone a “very subtle message” that is “strong enough to reach out to religious people, but not strong enough to turn off those who are concerned about the separation of church and state.”

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Some delegates are skeptical of the impact religion in politics may have on the ability to have open discussions on complex political issues.

“You can’t argue with faith,” said Susan Doerfer, who is from the battleground state of Ohio. “You can’t have a dialogue when I say I support this issue because it’s my religious belief.”

At the same time, Doerfer, who was raised Catholic but attends a synagogue with her Jewish partner, supports Democratic politicians addressing religion more explicitly “just to put the message out there” that religion is not exclusive to one party or the other.

DEA/KRE/JL END ROSSI