Silencing the religious left

The conventional wisdom of political consultants was that the way to reach Christian progressives was to mimic the language and tactics used by the Religious Right. When signs of moderation appeared in some religious constituencies, such as Catholics and evangelicals, the idea was for the left to tone down their rhetoric and agenda in order to create coalitions with these groups. These often contradictory approaches appears to have failed.


Part of the problem is that religious leaders, politicians and the media tend to call whatever is not on the hard right of the political spectrum "liberal" when in fact the view is centrist. The other problem is that in order to make certain issues palatable to moderates certain issues must come off the table, such as marriage equality, health-care for all, LGBT rights, and more.

Frederick Clarkson of the Daily Kos writes:

For those of us interested in understanding and better contending with the Religious Right, it has been alarming to watch otherwise seemingly sensible people actually internalize important elements of the views of the Religious Right, while presenting themselves as the Religious Left. This was bad enough, and has been reported and discussed (For example, here and here.) But what has received far less attention were the apparent efforts to silence religious progressives who disagree with this approach.

Read the rest here.

Posted by Andrew Gerns on October 16, 2009 5:50 PM | |
Comments (2)

You can only be silenced if you allow yourself to be silenced. If you are prepared to accept the consequences of being vocal, which may include marginalization, then you cannot be silenced.

I read the lopsided votes at GC 09 to represent how fed up the middle was. People might remember that centrists spoke out quite eloquently at GC 06 and their position was given some time to be tested.

Of course the hard right immediately snubbed and demeaned their efforts, quite TEC and so forth. They launched the whole Anglican Covenant scam in response to GC 06's effort to meet the moderates.

So TEC did not become more progressive in three years, it got fed up with the bilge of the right and unsympathetic to the freshly minted efforts of the Communion Partner's group.

At the moment the progressive positions hold sway because of the right's ongoing bombastic style. My Heavens the House of Bishops sent us the resolution on SSBs!!! That is fed up!

Posted by Michael Russell [TypeKey Profile Page] | October 16, 2009 7:31 PM

I agree, Michael.

If the Communion Conservatives had wanted to play ball w/ TEC, I think the moratorium on bishops in same-sex partnerships could probably have been extended (3-6-9 years?).

But desire ("with extreme prejudice") to turn a temporary moratorium into a permanent ban had become only too evident on the Right. It was that prejudice which so disgusted the Sensible Middle, IMO.

JC Fisher

Posted by tgflux [TypeKey Profile Page] | October 17, 2009 10:54 PM

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