PLAYING THE RELIGION CARD. Atrios has had a week of posts on religion and its role in politics, and in particular in progressive or liberal politics. Today's posts are especially interesting, having to do with the proper way of incorporating the religious left into the movement. So sad that the religious right has successfully appropriated the term "religion", especially as it is now applied to only a very narrow segment of possible religions: Only fundamental Christian sects which focus on the banning of abortion and the defense of marriage against gays and lesbians are really seen as religions in most political debates, and the unstated assumption is that conservatives are religious and that liberals are not. It is as if two or three political stances (and caring about the poor is not one of those) have been turned around and now stand as the qualifier of what is regarded as religious. This article about a Wiccan Army Chaplain and his tribulations in yesterday's Washington Post is a good reminder of the fact that not all religions are seen as equally worthwhile, especially among the so-called Religious Right, and that we have been swallowing the Luntz framing in most of the religious debates.
--J. Goodrich
