WP: Religious-Right Voter Guides Facing Challenge From Left

[DeepModem Mom]

Religious-Right Voter Guides Facing Challenge From Left
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 29, 2006; Page A05

A new group called Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good said yesterday that it will distribute at least 1 million voter guides before the Nov. 7 elections, emphasizing church teachings on war, poverty and social justice as well as on abortion, contraception and homosexuality.

The 12-page booklet, called "Voting for the Common Good: A Practical Guide for Conscientious Catholics," is part of a broader effort by liberal and moderate religious groups to challenge the Christian right on moral values, said Alexia Kelley, the group's executive director and a former employee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops....Since the conservative Christian Coalition began distributing voter guides in 1992, however, it has faced little or no competition from liberal or moderate religious organizations.

In Roman Catholic parishes, the group Catholic Answers, based in California, had the field largely to itself in 2004, when it distributed 10 million copies of its "Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics." This year, as in the past, the Catholic Answers guide urges Catholics to base their votes on five "non-negotiable" issues: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and same-sex marriage....

***

In Protestant churches, the Christian Coalition's guides will face competition this year from "Voting God's Politics," a brochure produced by the liberal evangelical magazine Sojourners and the anti-poverty group Call to Renewal. Like the Common Good guide, it discusses issues, not individual candidates....

***

In numbers, however, the battle of the voter guides is still not an even match. Sojourners has distributed 50,000 of its brochures and plans to print 150,000 more. Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition, said her group will distribute "millions" of its guides, which she said it is now compiling, to candidates in key races.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/28/AR2006092801664.html

[YOY]

1. If someone handed this to my at my Catholic church they'll

get it thrown right the hell back at them as well as being publically labeled a bunch of 'assholed who cuddle up to protestant extremist WHO DON'T EVEN THINK THEY ARE CHRISTIANS! and fool the ignorant to vote on issues that have not winable nor even debatable.'

I've already given the line: 'If I wanted to be Southern Baptist, I'd f***ing convert and forget how to read.'

[VegasWolf]

2. So God is so weak that he must rely on voters to push his agenda? nt

[reprobate]

14. HER agenda if you please. A jealous, punishing god is unacceptable

[VegasWolf]

15. Maybe it's a He-She? Because otherwise it would need a mate. nt

:toast:

[reprobate]

18. Actually, he had a mate before they left Babalon.

YAWEH had a consort named Asherah if I recall right, who was left behind when the tribe - usually identified with Abraham - cut and run from Babalon. Scholars say he was just one of the court gods of Ba'al. That particular tribe had picked him as their household god. So we see today that a very minor mythological figure has become the ONLY figure worthy of worship on this planet.

Now THAT'S coming up in the world.

Is it any wonder that he's usually referred to as an angry and jealous god? I'd be royally pissed if I ws ripped from my family and friends with not so much as a 'by your leave'.

However, I do take your point. On a deeper level many of the early civilizations had god/goddess pairs. I think this relates to Man's realization that everything has a balancing side. You can't have good with out evil, light without darkness, male without female.

[havocmom]

3. If a liberal leaning church did this, how long before IRS at the door?

I used to watch people coming from a small fundy church with their voter guides on Sundays before elections back in 94-99

A vet pal of mine noticed it going on at the church in his neighborhood. He got curious and started cruising other fundy churches on Sundays prior to elections. Lots of them had those easy to follow guides for their flocks.

He was enraged beyond belief. Calls the the IRS enraged him even further.

[One_Life_To_Give]

6. This is a Liberal leaning chuch group?

[havocmom]

7. huh? I said 'IF'

not that that one is. But there are some liberal leaning churchs in battles with the IRS right now. Are there any reports of winger churches in similar disputes re their tax exempt status? Pat Robertson sure as hell should be facing the IRS.

I'm going for more coffee. Want some?

[One_Life_To_Give]

8. Not as Liberal as I initially thought but not fundy, Link, yes please

It calls us to look beyond divisive politics to the fullness of our Church's teaching on a range of social issues - from poverty, war and torture to health care, immigration and the environment.
Voting-for-the-Common-Good

While they could be more liberal. They oppose Torture and the War. Support social programs and reject the idea of the "Pro-Life" litmus test for candidates. Perhaps most improtant of all is this could get people to think beyond what they are being spoon fed by the right.

A cup of coffee would be wonderful, thank you.

[CatholicEdHead]

23. Yes it is, it is the renamed "Catholics for Kerry" group in 04

I have been on their email list for years.

[NeoConsSuck]

19. How long?

Government probe of Pasadena church: a witch-hunt against Iraq war critics

The Internal Revenue Service’s probe to strip Pasadena’s All Saints Church of tax-exempt status is an act of political censorship aimed at intimidating and suppressing opposition to the war in Iraq and the policies of the Bush administration.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/sep2006/pasa-s30.shtml

[rubberducky]

4. hhhhmmmmmmm............

Nothing on torture. How telling is this??? Nothing on all the innocents killed in this bush`s uneccesary "wars"?? This is why I left the church.

[Jawja]

5. Although I am happy

the Christian left is challenging the Christo-Facist Right, I am totally against the mixing of religion and politics in the form of voter guides. It's too cozy a merger IMHO.

[LostinVA]

9. Self delete

[Catfight]

10. Well, thank God I'm not going to church anymore. nt

[jamesinca]

11. Here is a link to the Sojourners guide

http://www.sojo.net/Action/Alerts/VGP_Issues_Guide.pdf

The Sojourners web site is www.sojo.net.

Before the '04 election, there was an article called "Life does not end at birth" It pretty much bashed the Repug idea of anti-choice and to hell with them once born. Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners, wrote a book called "Gods politics, why the Right gets it wrong and the Left doesn't get it"

California state Dem party recently opened an office of religious outreach. They are trying to rid the state party of a falsely applied label of being godless heathens or something like that. This does not mean they are pro-theocracy, this means that they recognize the power of the church to influence peoples decisions.

[Mountainman]

12. I'm so damn sick of religions pushing their beliefs on the rest of us.

Same sex marriage and abortion are the issues, not killing in the Mid East, not losing health coverage, not losing jobs, education and on and on.

When ever I see a car in front of me with some kind of decal telling me that they are members of some religion I think, there goes a fool.

Why the hell can't people use the brain given to them to see what is really important outside their heads?

Flame away, but religion to me is one of the last vestiges of backwardness in man. It's not too far removed from the ancient people who could not understand some natural occurrence so they throw virgins in to a volcano to appease their gods. Hell to this day insurance companies call natural disasters acts of god! Go figure!

If you believe in social justice, why do you have to attack some religious thing to it? Can't you see that being decent to people is just the right thing to do without asking some reverend if it's what you ought to do?

[EFerrari]

13. Well, this article is about the left no longer ceding church goers

to the right. They're not going to knock on your door but challenge the right's sole ownership of congregations. For what it is, I think that's a very positive step.

[jamesinca]

16. I agree

it is a positive step. On the Sojourners web site, Jim Wallis has a nice exchange with Ralph Reed about why the religious right only focuses on abortion and gays. Wallis contends that there is more to morality and the poverty issue is a big part of that. Screwing the poor and class warfare is immoral and it is about time that the Churches spoke of that. As long as the religious right control the church debate it will only be gays and abortion. When the parts of morality that Wallis speak of become part of the debate, suddenly christians are pretty Democratic.

Otherwise I agree with the other poster, screw the backward, obligate mouth breathing, knuckle draggers.

[Zhade]

22. "more to morality" - as if there was a SINGLE THING wrong with choice...

...or being GLBT.

Wallis gets some things right, but like many religious folks is wrong on the "immorality" of these two issues.

[SoyCat]

17. No flames from me, Mountainman. I agree.

[w4rma]

20. Very good. (nt)

[Zhade]

21. They better not endorse a single politician.

That would be a violation of the separation of church and state.