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Democrats' senior adviser for religious outreach quits amid "under God" controversy
The Catholic League's William Donohue is no fan of the "religion outreach" leaders for the Democratic Party and the Kerry campaign. Weblog earlier noted that he went too far in painting Mara Vanderslice, Kerry's director of religion outreach, as an extremist. But we've got to admit that the Democrats' new senior adviser for religious outreach, Brenda Bartella Peterson, was an odd choice for the position. As Donohue, The Washington Times, and a few other conservative outlets note, she was part of a interfaith group in February that filed a friend of the court brief with the Supreme Court, asking it to remove "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance.

"Are they out of their minds?" Donohue asks rhetorically. "Would they hire a gay basher to reach out to homosexuals?" Peterson's appointment, he said, suggests "that either no one bothers to vet candidates for religious outreach or the elites making the choices are anti-religious."

Now wait a second. Again, Donohue is going way too far, and his "gay basher" comparison is ridiculous. Peterson is, after all, an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and was executive director for the Clergy Network for National Leadership Change (a group whose sole purpose is to rally religious leaders against President Bush's re-election). Her credentials are far deeper than Vanderslice's, who was more pulled into the position with the Kerry campaign simply because she knew where phrases like "least of these" come from. She's not anti-religious. Let's get that straight.

What she is, apparently, is against using religious language for patriotic purposes. Her amicus brief states, "'I pledge allegiance to …. one Nation, under God' is either a serious statement of religious faith, or it takes the name of the Lord in vain."

That indeed puts her against many supporters of the Pledge of Allegiance, as well as the judgment of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But it's pretty similar to what Christianity Today recently said in an editorial. Saying that the name of God without "religious freight," as O'Connor put it, is to take his name in vain. But unlike Peterson, we said that "under God" is an acceptable contemporary reference to religion. Peterson suggests that students are pledging allegiance to God each morning, and that it's unconstitutional for the government to ask them to do so. Not so: They're pledging allegiance to the nation, and that nation is described as being under God.

So Peterson is wrong, but she's not anti-religious. And she's still an odd choice for the position. Americans are overwhelmingly against taking "under God" out of the Pledge, for whatever reason. An April Gallup poll showed 91 percent support. 91 percent! Mom and apple pie don't poll at 91 percent. And religious Americans are even more supportive than the general public. The Democratic National Committee says Peterson's job is to "act as liaison to religious organizations and will encourage people to let their faith inform their participation in democracy." Wouldn't you think that they'd want someone in that post whose work so far has been to promote religion in the public sphere rather than oppose it?

In theory, that's where Peterson stands. The Daily Camera of Boulder, Colorado, paraphrases her as saying, "Many liberals are so leery of violating separation of church and state that they intentionally keep their faith out of their politics. And that's a mistake."

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August (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48