(RNS) — Party platforms are so called because they tell voters where a political party stands, or at least where it would like a sufficient number of voters to believe it stands. When it comes to religion, America’s two parties both have some things to say — and to not say.

As discussed previously in this space, the Republican Party’s most notable religious message in its 2024 platform is its deafening silence on abortion. Combined with a declaration of support for birth control and in vitro fertilization, this was designed to persuade the pro-choice American majority that a future Trump administration would do nothing to advance the pro-life cause to which the GOP had steadfastly pledged its allegiance for nearly half a century.

And lest, as the Democrats charge, the GOP wolf be seen as merely donning pro-choice sheep’s clothing, the Republican ticket has doubled down, with Donald Trump truthing, “My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” and JD Vance, on “Meet the Press,” promising a presidential veto of any national anti-abortion legislation. 

Clearly, the calculation is that the pro-choice votes to be gained from this apparent about-face will more than offset any pro-life votes that are lost. Meanwhile, to reassure the party’s Christian base, the GOP platform reasserts (albeit in a truncated version) the support for religious liberty (read: religious exemptions from government orders) laid out in its 2016 predecessor.

To that the current platform adds its support for “a new Federal Task Force on Fighting Anti-Christian Bias that will investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America.” One might have expected something comparable with respect to antisemitism, given the amount of concern for its rise expressed by GOP members of Congress over the past year, but perhaps the platform writers wanted Christians to hear that their suffering is unique.

This combination photo shows Vice President Kamala Harris, left, at the White House in Washington, July 22, 2024, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at an event July 26, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photos)

For its part, the Democratic platform — a lengthy document that has not been revised since President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race — includes extensive denunciations of both antisemitism and Islamophobia. It singles out as accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration a national strategy that’s combating the former and an impending national strategy to combat the latter.

It also assails Trump for both antisemitic and Islamophobic behavior. Of anti-Christian bias and persecution it makes no mention.

Like the Republicans, the Democrats declare their support for religious freedom but, unlike them, pair that with support for separation of church and state. They say they will “continue to honor both religious freedom and other civil rights, not put them at war with one another” — which amounts to saying they oppose the Republican preference for letting religion trump anti-discrimination laws.

Finally, the Democratic platform tips its hat to the species of federal support for faith-based social service provision initiated by George W. Bush and continued by administrations of both parties ever since. About this, the Republican platform has nothing to say.

In the first decade of this century, the White House office that oversaw such support was a matter of some public controversy. Now, the public could care less.