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I’ve begun to feel empathy for Jim Wallis. First he was unable to persuade enough of his fellow evangelicals that abortion and gay rights should not have been determining issues in the 2004 presidential vote. Now he’s taking flak from the left — specifically Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice, writing in the Dec. 13 issue of The Nation.
Steve Taylor skewered the insularity of Christian Yellow Pages back in 1984 with his song “Guilty By Association”:
As state by heartland state turned red on the night of 11/2, a few brave Democratic strategists began hinting that something would have to be done to move their party closer to the center of American life and, in particular, to lessen its hostility to traditional religious believers who once were part of the FDR-Truman coalition.
Consider this a short update from down here in South Florida, where people continue to struggle with the results of the 2004 election. On one level, this is a Jay Leno talking point. On another level, this story is actually rather interesting.
If you’re a member of the House of Commons and the comedian known for his roles in Mr. Bean and Blackadder opposes you — not once but twice — it’s probably a good time to rethink your proposal.
And this just in from the “values” wars. Sen. Edward Kennedy has asked member of his staff to investigate how liberals can talk about God. They may even need to do a better job of talking about God on television and the Internet, in order to compete with those mass-media superstars Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.
Here’s another story from the tidal wave just after the election that has continued to bother me a bit. The headline was “G.O.P. Adviser Says Bush’s Evangelical Strategy Split Country” and the basic concept was that the Christian right has totally taken control of the Republican Party, according to veteran GOP consultant Arthur Finkelstein. It now has veto power over the party’s choice for president. (Hear that, Rudy?) Early on, he says: “From now on, anyone who belongs to the Republican Party will automatically find himself in the same group as the opponents of abortion, and anyone who supports abortion will automatically be labeled a Democrat.” Actually, if you read that statement in a mirror, you’d have a pretty good summary of the 2004 Democratic Party platform.
Longtime New York Times television writer Bill Carroll has applied the blue America vs. red America motif to TV programming, finding that “choices of viewers, whether in Los Angeles or Salt Lake City, New York or Birmingham, Ala., are remarkably similar.”
Thursday’s dedication ceremonies for the Clinton Presidential Center offered some stirring images — including the presidential families all standing to watch Bono and the Edge performing (Windows Media) — and generous examples of presidents seeing the best in one another.
