Commentary: Democrats finally getting religion on religion
By Roland Martin - CNN
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
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April 9, 2008
Sweet Jesus! What has gotten into the Democratic Party when it comes to issues of faith?
On Sunday, CNN will broadcast the Compassion Forum, an event hosted by CNN's Campbell Brown and Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham. It will explore issues of faith and morality with Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
This is the second time the top Democratic candidates will deal with issues of faith. On June 4, CNN's Soledad O'Brien moderated a forum with the Rev. Jim Wallis' Sojourners Social Justice Ministry as host. That one featured Obama, Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards.
These forums should not be casually overlooked and blown off, because they represent a significant shift in attitude from previous Democratic presidential campaigns. Democrats, in the words of Sen. Joseph Biden after the Sojourners forum, acted more like agnostics -- other would say atheists -- when it came to issues of faith.
For nearly 30 years, Republicans successfully used wedge issues like abortion and homosexuality to rally their base to those social causes and elect candidates who were willing to go to the mat when they came up. Their outreach efforts were strong, consistent and they delivered time and time again. And as long as Democrats were willing to ignore the ever-increasing concerns of people who tied their faith with public policy, the GOP would continue to clean up at the ballot box.
Yet the outreach efforts by Clinton and Obama should serve as an example to all Democratic officeholders that ignoring voters who feel strongly about their faith, and also public policy, will continue to lead to losses.
Sunday's forum, which will be held at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, will allow each candidate to speak for 40 minutes on various moral issues, including poverty, global AIDS, climate change and human rights.
