A Second Home for Religious Voters?

The first time I shook a president's hand, I was a 16-year-old waiting for hours in honored anticipation at the St. Louis riverfront. The president was Jimmy Carter. His forthright claim to be "born again" generated sympathy among many evangelicals, as well as controversy in the media. One liberal theologian, Albert Outler, argued at the time that religious conservatives "want a society ruled by those who know what the Word of God is. The technical name for that is 'theocracy,' and their Napoleon, whether he likes it or not, is Jimmy Carter."

It was perhaps the only time that Jimmy Carter has been compared to Napoleon. And the American theocracy did not arrive -- though the charge has been made again and again in the decades since.

For me, Jimmy Carter was not a theocratic hope but an antidote to the moral emptiness of Nixon Republicanism. Carter was mildly pro-choice, but the party platform he ran on recognized the "religious and ethical nature of the concerns which many Americans have on the subject of abortion."

By 1984, something had changed. The Democratic platform declared abortion "a fundamental right." The Democratic nominee, Walter Mondale, began attacking religious conservatives in surefire applause lines. He talked of "radical preachers" and "extremists who control the Republican Party" who could "unleash an orgy of religious intolerance in our land." This was intended to be offensive -- evangelical attendance at orgies is generally low -- and it worked. In the 1984 election, I volunteered for the Reagan campaign.

The offenses have continued over the years. "My religion," Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean once declared, "doesn't inform my public policy" -- a stand that would have been inconceivable to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Democratic activist George Soros complains, "The separation of church and state, the bedrock of our democracy, is clearly undermined by having a born-again president" -- effectively adding a new constitutional test for the office: A candidate must not only be born in America, he or she must be born only once.

Given these attitudes, it is understandable that two out of three religious conservatives voted for President Bush and that about three out of four secular Americans support Democratic candidates for president. One study found that strongly Democratic voters are 5 percent less favorably disposed toward Roman Catholics than are strongly Republican voters, 10 percent less favorable toward Protestants and 23 percent less favorable toward Christian fundamentalists. Two election scholars conclude: "One has to reach back to pre-New Deal America, when political divisions between Catholics and Protestants encapsulated local ethno-cultural cleavages over prohibition, immigration, public education, and blue laws, to find a period when voting behavior was influenced by this degree of antipathy toward a religious group."

America is moving toward the development of one secular party and one religious party. And that is a danger to democracy. This trend turns nearly every political disagreement into a culture-war conflict. When the sides view each other as infidels or ayatollahs, it adds jet fuel to the normal combustion of American politics.

It would be good for America if both parties were to appeal to religious voters. The current Democratic presidential candidates -- some with roots in liberal Protestantism -- are more comfortable with religious language than some of their recent predecessors. But the most stinging criticism of the modern Democratic Party came from a Democrat, a man of rare conviction and courage. The late Gov. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania argued, "By embracing abortion, the Democratic Party is abandoning the principle that made it great: its basic commitment to protecting the weakest and most vulnerable members of the human family." Casey called an absolute pro-choice position the "cult of the imperial self" -- a belief that violated his sense of fairness and justice, rooted in the Catholic faith. And he set out to build a consistent culture of life, which included the poor, the elderly and the disabled.

This kind of agenda could have a powerful appeal to many evangelicals who are looking for a broader model of public engagement -- a larger vision of social justice -- than the religious right has provided. But no appeal from Democrats will be effective if the deepest beliefs of religious people are viewed as suspect and their strongest principles are declared a threat to tolerance.

Casey managed to be pro-life, pro-family and pro-poor, and he saw no contradictions among them. For Democrats to have a real shot at appealing to religious conservatives, they will need to be the party of Casey. They have a long way to go.

Michael Gerson is the author of "Heroic Conservatism." His e-mail address ismichaelgerson@cfr.org.