Warning: I'm an overt atheist and this is
Tough on the DLC. "Ms. Lincoln’s prescription for electoral success may make sense for Democratic politicians thirsting for office, but its unstated premise is one that should scare the bejesus out of any nonbeliever, if such a person is willing to so designate himself in a climate thick with assertions of the primacy of faith. Ms. Lincoln is saying, in effect, that if you don’t have faith, you have no place in the public life of the nation.
What’s going on here is intimidating people into uttering religious thoughts they do not mean and going along with the insertion of the religious interest and religious advantage into all and every aspect of public and institutional life...
The phony reverential attitude, the lowering of the eyes, the clasping of the hands in a way which denotes piety and pure living, the formulaic braying and the unarguable deference for any inanity so long as it comes from a religious source—it all follows....
What possesses the Democrats to play this game is beyond understanding. Their lately-come-by piety is not going to fool anyone other than themselves. The Democratic Leadership Council types are saying that Bill Clinton is an example of a politician who was able to talk comfortably about his faith, to use Ms. Lincoln’s phrase, but they’re kidding themselves. The religious people took Mr. Clinton for the lying whoremaster he regrettably was and broke their backs trying to drive him out of office on morals charges. They almost did it, too. If the leaders of the Democratic Party hope that they can fool the holy people by buying themselves white leatherette-bound Bibles and pink plastic Jesuses and turning up to give testimony at church, they’ve got another thing coming. That is going to hoodwink the same number of people who can’t see through it when liberals call themselves progressives. You know the old saying: "Just because he’s crazy doesn’t mean he’s stupid." The same for religious nuts.
When you consider the background of so many people in the Democratic Party, it is bewildering that they would take the risk of encouraging what can so easily become communitarian/sectarian conflict. The parents and grandparents of many of them suffered from the hatreds and violence which sprang from allowing religion the kind of role that the evangelicals are demanding. Now their grandchildren are willing to risk a reprise?"I supported Kerry in the primaries but here is a quote I feel compelled to praise:
"I want my country back. We want our country back. I am tired of being divided. I don't want to listen to the fundamentalist preachers anymore. I want America to look like America.""-Howard Dean