Liberal Christians on the Values Vote

An interesing article by Alan Cooperman in the Washington Post on the reaction of liberal Christian leaders to the Bush re-election.

...the moral values held by most Americans are much broader than the handful of issues emphasized by religious conservatives in the 2004 presidential campaign.

Battling the notion that "values voters" swept President Bush to victory because of opposition to gay marriage and abortion, three liberal groups released a post-election poll in which 33 percent of voters said the nation's most urgent moral problem was "greed and materialism" and 31 percent said it was "poverty and economic justice." Sixteen percent cited abortion, and 12 percent named same-sex marriage.

One problem is that the Christian right has been much more effective in reaching voters. The poll showed that twice as many voters had heard from the Christian right as from the Christian right. (71 percent vs. 38 percent).

Jim Wallis of Sojourners suggested that moderate and liberal religious activists need to rethink how some issues, expecially abotion, are approached. That's a point I've made here on The New Appeal to Reason. I'll have something more to say in a day or so.

Tom Perriello of Res Publica said "progressives need to embrace the deep moral critique that people are looking for and make that case on poverty and Iraq, and not just try to talk more about God or outpace the Republicans on gay marriage or abortion."