Redstate

By jfpurdue01 Posted in Liberals — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Maybe its just me, but I got a really good laugh at how little Howard Dean understands religion. He is encouraging democrats to 'reach out' to evangelicals to try to get their vote. Certainly this is an admirable stance. In reading this, I thought maybe he was encouraging democrats to end their hostility to anyone who is open about their faith and allows their faith to influence all aspects of their life. But then I came across this quote from Dean:

In other words, Dr. Dean believes that the way for democrats to reach out to evangelical Christians is to change the church's stance on homosexuality. Perhaps his next step is to re-write the Bible as well. And after he's done that, he can convince pastors to stop preaching about sin (after all, to liberals there is no such thing as sin. You're okay, I'm okay, we're all okay, right?). He thinks people leave Church feeling bad about themselves because their friend is gay rather than leaving Church feeling bad for their friend.

Here's a lesson for Dr. Dean. Christians tend to vote for Republicans (and conservatives particularly) for a few reasons. Certainly abortion is a big one. Most Christians believe that all life is precious and that abortion is the killing of one of God's precious beings. So Dr. Dean, I'd suggest that if you want to reach out to Christians, a good step would be to change your stance on abortion. Another reason Christians tend to vote for conservative candidates is because conservatives stand for the constitution as it was written by our founding fathers. When the constitution says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," we celebrate that as protecting us from being prohibited from practicing our religion. Liberals, on the other hand, somehow manage to interpret those words as meaning that religious people (particularly Christians) are prohibited from talking about their religion and should not be allowed to vote.

Dr. Dean says that "people want to go to church because they know what they can do about poverty, about Darfur, about the environment." So why do these same people tend to vote for conservatives? Let me explain to Dr. Dean (not that he would ever read anything on this website).

Poverty: Jesus was certainly in favor of people helping the poor. Churches do much more for the poor than any government has ever done. Christians, who donate more money to help the poor than probably any other group of people also tend to vote for conservatives more than just about any other group of people. Why? Because we want to help the poor, we do not want the government to take over the lives of the poor. Welfare doesn't help the poor, it simply makes them dependent on the government and thus keeps them voting for the democrats that will offer them more and more welfare programs.

Darfur: I agree that America should do more about Darfur. I also think that had President Bush sent troops toDarfur instead of Iraq, he would be getting hounded by Dr. Dean for letting Saddam accumulate WMD's while getting involved in a 'quagmire' in Darfur. Christians want the people in Sudan to be free from the genocide that is occurring there. We also understand that you cannot accomplish this by tearing down the military, preaching appeasement, and depending upon a corrupt organization that calls itself the United Nations. Churches across America (and presumably across the world) are sending food and medicine to the people of Darfur to help them. We don't pretend to think that the same money, if given to the United Nations, would get to those people in Darfur. Remember these words: "Oil for food?"

Environment: Dr. Dean is right that Christians care very much about the environment. We believe that we are stewards of God's creation. You'll find Churches engaging in recycling campaigns, adopting highways, etc. However, you will not find most Christians petitioning the government to start regulating everything and adhering to the Kyoto protocols. Not only would that not do a whole lot for the environment, but it would drastically increase the poverty in our country which, as Dr. Dean has already pointed out, is something Christians feel very strongly about.

So yes, Howard Dean has made an astute observation about just a few of the things Christians care about, but he still does not understand how a group of people that cares so much about those things could still vote for conservative candidates rather than liberal ones. The fact is that liberals give only lip service to each of these issues. On top of that, let's face it: you don't gain the support of a group of people by insulting their faith and saying that the Word of God is wrong in saying that homosexuality is a sin. We hate the sin, not the sinner. We just don't want that sin to be sponsored by the government.

Finally, Dr. Dean says "young people are changing America -- and they're changing the evangelical movement." Actually, the DNC chairman has gotten this reversed. Yes, young people are great and they are a force in the evangelical movement. However, it is the evangelical movement that is changing young people and that is helping them to go out and change the world.

Dr. Dean, if you really would like to 'reach out' to evangelical Christians, your party needs to change its ways. You aren't going to get Christians to vote for you by continuing down your current path and hoping they change. You're going to need your party to change, and that's just not going to happen, is it? The fact is that if you weren't so hostile to Christian voters, you would lose a large number of your supporters who vote for democrats because they can't stand Christians. Just look at Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, and even Ron Reagan (the son) for examples. Atheists want all things Christian out of their sight and the party that is willing to push that agenda forward is the one lead by Howard Dean. That's why you have to hope for Christians to change rather than trying to change your own party to make it appeal to Christian voters.