A 2005 interview with Tim Kaine about religion and politics.

[madfloridian]

In my mind I believe Tim Kaine is a very good man. He is a moral and Christian man.

Our views diverge when he thinks Democrats need to talk about their religion comfortably when running for office. I disagree. I think the needs of the state and nation can be discussed out of the context of religion.

I realize that I am extra sensitive to the incursion of religion into public life. I have often said I am a recovering Southern Baptist. My church supported the Iraq invasion from the pulpit as a holy war against evil. They are against women and gays having the right to choose. They think women are inferior, must submit to their husbands, must not have abortions, and in some cases would deprive them of birth control.

This article I kept from 2005. It disturbed me how Kaine talked about John Kerry's religion...he judged him as a fellow catholic...very wrong thing to do. He said Kerry did not discuss his faith openly enough...wrong again. I don't think our president needs to do that.

Here is more of what he told Rob Garver at The American Prospect. Remember this is the man who is going to be chairman of our party for the next four years.

Reaching out to religion

His views on abortion are roughly in line with those of George W. Bush. He thinks John Kerry spent too much time on the campaign trail talking about windsurfing and not enough time talking about God. And the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is spending an unprecedented $5 million to help him get elected governor of Virginia.

..."In January, when then-DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe announced the party's $5 million commitment to the Kaine campaign, McAuliffe said, "Tim Kaine represents the future of this party. He's a pro-business Democrat, a man of strong faith and values, and is committed to fiscal responsibility."

Our party has many of strong values, ethical and moral people. They don't openly discuss their religon. They should not have to do so.

I very much resented what he said about John Kerry. It was judgemental.

We do better by doing two things," he says. "One, by being authentically who we are as candidates. Candidates who feel comfortable talking about their hobbies and their family, but don't feel comfortable talking about what's central to their lives -- there is just something about that that lacks authenticity. Whatever your religious tradition is, if it's important to you and you don't feel comfortable talking about it, you end up coming across as insincere." A recent example of that, he says, is what happened to Kerry in November. A fellow Catholic who said that his faith was an important element of his life but was clearly ill-disposed to talk about it, Kerry was thrashed by Bush in Virginia, losing 54 percent to 46 percent among the general population and 56 percent to 43 percent among voters reporting weekly church attendance.

...""I think that John Kerry demonstrated much more comfort talking about windsurfing and hockey than he did talking about his beliefs," says Kaine, admitting that he does have a limited amount of sympathy for the Massachusetts senator's reticence. ....There is clearly a Christian New Testament tradition that warns against praying loudly in the front of the temple where everyone can see you," he says. " … I think there are devout religious people who are on guard against false demonstrations of piety, and that is an appropriate thing to wonder about. But it always strikes me as a little unusual when a candidate can talk easily about relatively peripheral or minor things but not talk with the same enthusiasm about what is the central belief system of their life."

No, no, no. A candidate for any office should not have to share their religious views to get elected. We have gone even further down that road this election. Way too far. Tim Kaine is a good man, but he has no right to judge others by whether they talk about their religion.

The part that bothers me the most is Kaine's warning that we should not criticize the Christian right, even those like Robertson or Falwell. He is wrong. They are trying to turn our country into a theocracy. Falwell may be gone, but his sons continue his traditions. Of course we need to criticize them for their proselyting. We must.

"The second thing that Democrats have to do better on is not attacking the 'religious right,'" he said. "I think that has been a standard bogeyman that Democrats have often used in campaigns, including campaigns in Virginia. If somebody advances an idea or position that's wrong, then attack them for having a bad idea. But they are not wrong because they are religious.

"When Democrats kind of cavalierly attack the religious right or go after Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, our candidates have sent the signal to a lot of religious people, 'Well, I guess they are not interested in me.' And I think this includes a lot of people who would fit very naturally within the Democratic Party."

I am noticing now that it is okay to send a "signal" to women and gays who are already a part of the party that the religious right is more welcome right now than they seem to be.

He is a good Christian man. He is going to be chairman of our party. That is a fact, and there is no say in it for me. He won't set policy. However...his choice DID set policy. That choice says that the religious views on women and gays are going to be the ones in play right now.

[terisan]

1. Scapegoating, I think, will be the big danger to women and gay people.

There is an attempt on the part of government and many religious leaders to bring people together by finding a common enemy or finding groups within our country to blame for our present situation, rather than facing their own responsibility for our situation.

This is why elevating people who are hostile to the civil and human rights of women and glbt people has to be strongly opposed and openly criticized--it sets an example indicating that it is all right to ridicule and attack these people.

Women comprise more than 50% of our population but are only 17% of Congress--the lack of representation of this massive population is, I believe, why issues important to woman have never been adequately addressed.

If Kaine's personal religious views are more important to him than the Constitution of the USA, he should step down.

[madfloridian]

3. I had forgotten what McAuliffe said...

That Kaine was the future of the party.

Sounds like we are going to take the place of the GOP as the party of religion.

[madfloridian]

6. "elevating people who are hostile to the civil and human rights of women and glbt people "

You are right...elevating these people who are hostile to such rights is a big mistake. Good point.

[terisan]

2. Double post deleted.

[madfloridian]

4. When JFK ran, he did everything he could to reassure he would not push his faith.

And I don't think he really ever did. It was expected of someone running for president in the US then.

Now they are required to pass a religious litmus test, and the choice of Kaine shows more movement that direction.

I want to feel happy about my party right now, but the giving in to religious themes worries me.

[dorkulon]

11. That's only because his religion was considered suspect.

It was only "expected" because he was Catholic.

[madfloridian]

5. JFK's speech about his religion. Compare and contrast...times have certainly changed.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16920600

"But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in — for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

...For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

...That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe — a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test — even by indirection — for it. If they disagree with that safeguard, they should be out openly working to repeal it."

[madfloridian]

7. One last kick for the ones among us who want the separation

of church and state.

[bigtree]

8. you remember though, that Obama had done the same thing, not with Kerry

. . . but bemoaning the fact that the loss was because our party hadn't adequately expressed our values (including religion) to voters. He also said we hadn't been talking about them enough, just like Kaine does here (albeit there's a difference with Kaine directly criticizing our nominee.

BTW, Obama's speech he gave on this irked me. If pressed I'll find it. I think it was shortly after he came to the Senate.

here it is:

'Call to Renewal' Keynote Address | U.S. Senator Barack Obama

http://obamaspeeches.com/081-Call-to-Renewal-Keynote-Address-Obama-Speech.htm

excerpt:

For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines. Indeed, the single biggest "gap" in party affiliation among white Americans today is not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called Red States and those who reside in Blue, but between those who attend church regularly and those who don't.

Conservative leaders have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design.

Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that - regardless of our personal beliefs - constitutional principles tie our hands. At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word "Christian" describes one's political opponents, not people of faith.

Now, such strategies of avoidance may work for progressives when our opponent is Alan Keyes. But over the long haul, I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people's lives -- in the lives of the American people -- and I think it's time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.

And if we're going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution.

This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a hunger that's deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause.

Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily rounds - dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets - and they're coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough.

They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They're looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness.

more . . .

[madfloridian]

9. I did not know about that Obama speech.

I need a respite from preachy politicians. Our church called us unpatriotic because we did not support the Iraq invasion. We were not considered worthy.

This stuff needs to stop...whoever does it.

[bigtree]

10. I found it

edited the post above to include a link and excerpt

[madfloridian]

16. Thanks.

Will give it a read.

[Marr]

12. Just curious-- why do you think he's a "good man"?

I don't assume any politician is a good person, nor do I particularly care. I want effective bureaucrats. I could not care less about their private lives.

But more than that, I've noticed no correlation between public piety and actual morality, unless it's an inverse relationship. Ted Haggard, Jerry Falwell, and the whole troupe of publicly Christian Republican politicians make me suspect that people who make a show of their religion are the most bent of all.

[madfloridian]

15. I do think so. I think I am a good person...though I don't go to church anymore.

From what I have seen of Kaine he seems that way to me. But I do not like the idea that our party chairman thinks everyone needs to talk about their religion publicly.

[bluedawg12]

13. Dems fighting the next war, with the last wars tactics

Now that repugs have shown the nation just exactly what it means to have theocrats help frame policy and why it didn't work, we pick up the same message - as though we lost in 2008.

In the past the media wrongly portrayed Dems as secular and anti-religion.

The reply message shouldn't be that we wear our faith on our sleeves as much as the repugs.

The message is that while law and politics are secular activities, men and women of all faiths are welcome under the Dem tent.

My impression was that the nation was tired of the Dobsons and Lands and Falwels and Robertsons in the white house setting our moral compass and national policy. So of course, we do just that?

[Freddie Stubbs]

14. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama were comfortable talking about their faith

Does anyone see a pattern here?

[MicaelS]

17. Two points

(1) Obama is an African-American. Throughout my life (I'm 51), almost every single AA , friend, classmate, teacher co-worker and acquaintance, no matter their political position on any issue, (and most were liberal / progressive) has expressed a strong personal religious faith. You do not insult God, Jesus, Allah, Mohammed, religion, faith, etc without getting an earful. In other words, you are not going to win any influence with AAs bashing religion. Which leads to point two....

No, no, no. A candidate for any office should not have to share their religious views to get elected. We have gone even further down that road this election. Way too far. Tim Kaine is a good man, but he has no right to judge others by whether they talk about their religion.

(2) Sorry, but, yes, yes, yes. In your view, and the view of many others on DU, (one I actually share with you) a candidate for any office should not have to share their religious views to get elected. Well THAT is a minority viewpoint (pun intended). It is a recipe for NOT getting elected in the country, especially in the Bible Belt. And (in my experience) in the AA community. In other words, NANA. (No Atheists Need Apply). I personally could never see an avowed Atheist ever getting elected POTUS. I assume you have seen that poll that most Americans rank Atheists at the bottom in a list of trustworthiness?

[defendandprotect]

18. THIS is a tragedy . . .

It is dishonest politicians who wave flags and Bibles --

our Founders well understood that --

And, this isn't someone who should be given a leadership post where they

can influence the party and candidates in regard to their religious beliefs!

[madfloridian]

19. Yes.

It shows our party is replacing the GOP as the religion party.

[Sanctified]

20. I am what some would call a hardcore Christian and I distrust any politician who..

flaunts his religion, I judge individuals based upon their actions not based upon how much they say they love God or how well they can cite scripture. You can talk about loving God and your neighbor all you want but when you are supporting the bombing of women and children in Iraq, your actions speak louder than your false words.

[Cabcere]

21. I have my concerns about this as well.

Don't get me wrong - I like a lot of things about Tim Kaine. I believe he is genuinely a decent person who wants to do what is right (but what exactly is "right" is a matter of debate, isn't it?). I think he's done a pretty good job as governor, and I was really excited to see him campaigning for Obama. However, I believe very strongly in the separation of church and state. Of course people's beliefs/values are going to affect the way they see the world, and therefore govern their actions to at least some extent, but I don't think it's right to have a "litmus test" for Christianity (or any other belief system, for that matter) in government. I don't necessarily fault Kaine for wanting to reach out to "religious people," but you're absolutely right - doing so at the expense of women, gays, and other groups negatively affected by some aspects of these religious beliefs/practices is not right. It would be nice if there existed a happy medium, but sometimes I think that the very nature of this divide prevents that from ever happening. :shrug: At any rate, I wish my governor the best as the new DNC chair, and I hope he will do a good job.

[TheCML]

22. Im a Christian

however i believe in keeping the bible out of the government and keeping flags out of the church. thats just me however. also mr. kaines labor policies bug me more than anything.