If the latest epistle from St. Amy…

...proves anything, it's that Ms. Sullivan has a capacity for getting noticed. She's drawn attention from heavy hitters here, there and seemingly everywhere, but given my own history with Sullivan, I can't resist offering another take.

She opens her Washington Monthly piece with a hopeful tale of a skirmish over religious education in Alabama, where an attempt to introduce a curriculum that presents the Christian Bible the "in a historical and cultural context—giving students a better understanding of biblical allusions in art, literature, and music…", leading to headlines like “GOP blocks votes on Bible class bill." She suggests this portends a split between "moderate evangelicals" and the Republican demagogues that exploit them, and that Democrats can reap benefits from this rift.

Of course, the 'Bama GOP isn't responding to "moderate evangelicals" at all. After all, lined up against the entreprenurial evangelical Sullivan champions in the curriculum case were stalwarts of the fundamentalist right, including the Christian Coalition, Concerned Women of America, and the Eagle Forum. It's not that they don't want their Bible taught in public school classrooms. It's that they want it taught as the literal and revealed word of God, or not at all. They are not, in fact, evangelicals in the convetional sense, but fundamentalists, and they are the best organized and most active wing of the religious right. They hate the very notion of 'Bible as literature' classes and they love the 'Bama GOP for their efforts.

Still, Sullivan claims that relatively "moderate" positions on issues like the environment and public education might trump issues like abortion and gay marriage if the 41% of evangelical voters who have such postions would just understand that the Republicans may need them, but they don't really like them. Of course, by Sullivan's own count, we're already getting 22% of those votes, so apparently we're doing something right. What's wrong is our "reputation on religion," which Amy stands ever ready to remind us is simply awful. In fact, it seems to get a little worse each time we're reminded.

To be honest, that's the biggest bone I have to pick with Sullivan. As a Democrat who is as about my religious faith as my political creed, the constant emphasis on how awful our reputation is among the faithful. In fact, I don't theink I've ever attended a Democratic Party meeting, and I've attended hundreds, that wasn't chock full of United Methodists, Unitarians, Congregationalists, Reform Jews, Roman Catholics, and many who'd readily call themselves evangelicals.

Who you won't find in the Democratic ranks are fundamentalists, of any faith, because fundamentalism in any guise is inconsistent with the basic principles of democratic Constitutional government which are the elemental basis of, if you will, Democratic faith. Religious fundamentalism requires, in any consistent application, theocracy, since the demands of God must always precede those of any man, or body of men, or any man-made document or law. At its very core, religious fundamentalism is profoundly anti-American.

There are doubtless those, though, who would gladly give an inch or two on biblical inerrancy if we'd just slide their way a bit on little things like civil liberties for gay folks and privacy rights for women. Of course, such a shift might be viewed as within reason if you believe, with Sullivan that "The immediate post-election conventional wisdom was that Democrats lost because they couldn't appeal to so-called “moral values” voters…"

Personally, I thought the conventional wisdom was that Democrats lost because the attacks on John Kerry successfully undermined his ability to gain the confidence of a fear riddled electorate on the issue of national security, but as they say, different reality tunnels for different sensory funnels. I'm just as sure that Sullivan is wrong as I am that she believes that she's right. Believing that, it appears she's willing to pay the price, finding a number of points from internet censorship to 'abstinence' education to a little more Bible in the classroom, she sees a lot of room for compromise.

It would be worth it, because…

Despite all of the punditry about a “God gap” at the voting booth, this is a better moment for Democrats to pick up support from religious moderates than any other time in the past few decades. That's because evangelicals themselves are the ones who are broadening the faith agenda, insisting that there are issues they care about beyond abortion and gay marriage, connecting Gospel messages about the golden rule and the Good Samaritan to the policies they want their government to support.

The problem is, of course, that there have been evangelicals connecting the Gospel to government, evangelicals who view working for justice as their God ordained witness to the world, all along. For the most part, they're Democrats. If they aren't, and it has anything to do with Sullivan's never-ending refrain that "Democrats are viewed as hostile to religion," perhaps it would be a step in the right direction for Sullivan to admit the simple truth, that Democrats are not, in fact, hostile to religion. Many Democrats are religious, just as many Republicans are not.

Amy's right about one thing…

For 30 years, the Republican advantage among religious voters has come from being able to successfully control the definition of “religious,” conflating it with “conservative” and encouraging the media to do the same.

Perhaps she should strive harder to resist that encouragement herself.