Get Religion

Found in the dumpster outside our offices today: (last pages seem to be missing)

Get Religion! A Guide for Democrats

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Spare Us Lord, Or Why We Need To Get Religion

This chapter shows why Democrats, the United States and God need us to get religion. Democrats need religion to avoid getting spanked again in the next election. We just can’t win unless we make inroads in the religion and values voting bloc. The United States needs religion because the debate about religion and politics is really a debate about who we are as a nation; it transcends any one election or politician. Unless we get religion we can’t participate in that debate, so conservative voices win by default. God needs us to get religion because the religious right’s view of God is just shameful. For the sake of Democrats, the U.S. and God – we must do better.

2. Holy Crap: Does Religion Really Stink?

The introduction shows us why we need to get religion. This chapter explains why we fear religion, why we think religion stinks. I’ll argue that we fear religion because of the way it can inspire people to make radical efforts to transform the world. It’s an unsettling and disturbing force, but it can be a good one. That is, the smell of religion in American politics depends on us, on whether we direct its transformative capacity in a positive direction. I’ll show that religion can be brought into our politics like a fresh breeze – clearing the air of the foul Republican monopoly over issues of values and morality.

3. Freedom Isn’t Free, But Only Poor People Pay: Why God Doesn’t Cut Taxes on the Wealthy

The main religious and moral issues in American politics are abortion and homosexuality. Poverty has not emerged as a moral issue. Yet income inequality in the United States – the gap between the richest and poorest 20% -- is greater than in India. Here I’ll show Democrats how to make poverty a religious and moral issue. Doing so allows us to shift the focus away from abortion and homosexuality, attack Republican economic policies as anti-Christian and frame our liberal economic agenda in Christian terms.

4. Vote for the Bush of Your Choice: Why God isn’t Pro-Life or Pro Life Doesn’t End at Birth: Democrats and Abortion

Here I show that Democrats have accepted the way Republicans have framed the issue of abortion – God and Republicans on one side, women and Democrats on the other. As long as the issue is framed in this way Democrats will be on the losing side, the division must be rejected. Instead, I’ll argue that Democrats can bring God into the pro-choice side of the picture. God need not fall only and exclusively on the Pro-life side.