Polarization

It occurs to me that I, along with many others on the left, may be playing right into Ann Coulter's hands.

Many of us have written posts and articles in which we have been critical of the Christian Right. As we see the evangelicals push their intolerant agenda with ever greater success it is difficult not to.

We have to be careful, however. These arguments only strengthen the conviction among those on the right that liberal politics is antithetical, even hostile to Christianity. The more that liberals argue against religious politics, the further we push ourselves from mainstream America - the very people we must win over in order to reverse the hardcore evangelicals' successes.

The greatest conservative success in recent years has been associating their policies with Christianity. When pundits talk of reaching out to 'values voters' they mean advocating anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-science policies, all laced with Christian dogma. This is troublesome for us because most people are Christian, and therefore, susceptible to politics dressed as religion. The more 'Christian values' becomes synonymous with bigotry and intolerance the harder it is to talk of equality and tolerance. Turning this around is possibly the greatest challenge facing the left.

We shouldn't be disheartened though. Most people are not anti-gay, anti-abortion or anti-science, at least not yet. We may never win over the hardcore evangelicals, but politically speaking, this doesn't matter - it's the moderates we need. Liberals must embrace the religious values that most people hold if we are ever to have a chance at holding power in America. We already know that liberal politics is extremely concordant with the core values of Christianity (brotherhood, community, helping the weak & vulnerable, etc), we just have to remind moderate Americans of this in language that they understand!