"Some people say" that Barack Obama's speech of July 1 supporting a new initiative of federal outreach to faith-based good works is pandering. Even if it were pandering, it would be a good thing. But it's not.

For one thing, it may mean that Barack Obama, unlike the Current President, reads things. His address came nearly as a direct answer to an opinion column in June 28 issue of The Washington Post by former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Jim Towey, "Who’ll Keep the Faith-Based Initiative?" Obama's plan probably irks Towey for several reasons, first and foremost that Obama's name is often followed by a "D" for "Democrat."

No, this is a bona fide policy offering from Obama, not a political peace offering for his being a Muslim and all. First of all, Obama doesn't do that shit. He's The Real Deal, capital R, capital D. He will win but without all the bullshit. Period. Second, the proposal as he's laid it out is perfectly consistent with his history beginning as a community organizer in the hardass neighborhoods of Detroit. There is nothing inconsistent or disingenuous about it. It is directly in line with something that this blogger argued long and hard during the primary regarding Obama;s "experience," that his state and local experience would, to the contrary of his detractors, actually serve to be downright essential to his presidency. No, this is a genuine policy proposal, unlike some "faith" "based" "initiatives" created by The Current President.

However. If Presumptive President Barack Obama were to try to speak to the evangelicals, I think it would probably be a good idea. Really.

Why not? We have more to offer them than they do. If you're religious in America and are concerned about preserving religious freedom, you are millions of times better off with the liberals than with the "conservatives."

Liberals are, by dictionary definition, people who, the first time they encounter Voltaire's most famous quote, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," become weepy and say "That's beautiful." When "conservatives" first hear that sentiment, they often exclaim, "Voltaire? Who's that fag?"

Many liberals are, indeed, godless no-good communists such as myself. But we'd pick up sub-machine guns to stop anyone from forcing or denying worship. This is true. "Conservatives" might think about defending your right ot worship, but only if you believe in Jesus Christ and if you read the right Bible and if you underline the correct passages and if you genuflect left to right and if you claim to oppose abortion (unless it's YOUR daughter what's pregnant). It's liberals, kids, who actually care about religious freedom and who actually understand how to preserve it.

Proof: Look again at failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney's speech, entitled "Why Mormons Like To Wear Magical Underpants—Look, I'm Wearing Mine Right Now," delivered on Dec. 6, 2007. He said the following. In fact, he didn't just say it. He thought it first, then he wrote it down, and then he actually said this in front of cameras and, presumably, God and everybody. (Emphasis of stupid things said by Mitt Romney mine.)

We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America—the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

No, asshole. We're right. And we're right on your behalf and on behalf of all of the faithful in the Untied States of America. Maintaining a wholly secular public square is the only concrete method ever demonstrated for preserving religious freedom. Once you require a deity in the public square, it's only a question of which deity is the government-sanctioned one and how many goose-stepping, pomade-mulletted Joel Osteens it takes to frog-march you to the Official House Of Worship Of The United States Guv'ment. A secular public square allows your friend Herschel to worship G-d, allows me to sleep in Sundays, and allows Mitt Romney to worship God as a Mormon. And it's liberals who understand that, who would gladly take up arms to allow you talk to your imaginary friends in the sky even though we're all a bunch of godless communists.

Mitt Romney sure as hell doesn't understand that. Nor does his party.

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.

Now, that is some scary shit.

Further evidence that the Democratic Party understands and reveres religious freedom more than does the Republigoat Party: Did you see 60 Minutes Sunday?

From the time of Jesus, there have been Christians in what is now Iraq. The Christian community took root there after the Apostle Thomas headed east in the year 35. But now, after nearly 2,000 years, Iraqi Christians are being hunted, murdered and forced to flee—persecuted on a biblical scale in Iraq’s religious civil war.

That is a tinderbox that the Untied States of America ignited. Under the watch of the Republigoat Party. Under Sadaam, Christians were fine in Iraq. His Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was a Christian for crissake. Now, after the idiotic meddling of this administration, eh, not so much. So, tell me, which political mindset again is better for religious freedom? Hmmmm?

This case needs to be made, fervently, to the so-called "values voters." The Republigoat Party is in severe disfavor with this voting bloc—which was based on nothing but a cynical, ineffective political alliance anyway—and it's time for the Democratic Party to get on its knees and ask these folks for their vote. We can get it, and we should have it, because, honestly, we have much, much more to offer them.

But what about abortion? You ask.

Well. We're right on abortion, too, and we need to tell them that. We need to explain that we don't like abortions any more than they do, but that we understand that it's not even physcially possible to legislate them away or to rule them away in court; that women have been trying to "get rid of it" ever since they've been getting pregnant—it is a little-known fact that an anciently censored passage of the Old Testament has Eve throwing herself down a flight of stairs—and that they'll continue to do so no matter what a bunch of fat pasty dickheads in the mid-atlantic have to say about it; that historically, nobody has actually given two farts about abortion in this country until the mid-1800s, when doctors here decided they no longer wanted to allow pharmacists to practice it and so they trumped up "moral" grounds to oppose it. We need to explain to them that their current regime is not actually interested in solving the problem; that, in fact, they feel very comfortable with it because it gives them an issue to run against libruhls on. Those baby-killing, godless communist bastards.

The Democratic Party has an opporunity to seize and could actually benefit by appealing to evangelicals. Not by pandering to them. But by piping up and actually talking to them. Because, truth told, we have more to offer people of faith than they do. The persistent, loud lies of politically ambitious Republigoats have for years kept Americans in the dark regarding this truth. It's time that we started telling it like it is and establishing a 50-state strategy across the cultural divide as well.

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