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Streep: "It was a question about when you put Jesus on the campaign bus to stump for you, you have to really listen to what he says, because he says, 'If a man smite thee on the cheek, let you turn the other that he may smite it also.' And he says, 'He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.' And he says, 'Love thine enemy.' Jesus could have raised an army against the people that persecuted him. He didn't. So that's what I was pointing out in my speech, and I couldn't really imagine Jesus, like I couldn't imagine how Jesus would vote. Jesus was the Prince of Peace. Would the Prince of Peace vote for a war President?"

Washington: "And it's open to interpretation. Jesus also went into the temple and kicked everybody out."

Streep: "That's kicking the money-changers out of the temple."

Washington: "Well, you're right. So—"

Streep: "The money-changers should get out of Congress, I agree. And I agree, but he didn't—"

Washington: "He didn't. He didn't only say turn the other cheek though. You've got to read the whole book. That's not what all he said."

Streep: "Oh, I do read the whole book."

Washington: "I do too. And that's not all he said."

Streep: "What does he say that said 'pick up a stick and kill somebody?'"

Washington: "Like I said, he did go into the temple and cleared the place well—"

Streep: "Of money, yeah."

Washington: "Okay, well, we're all—"

Streep: "Money's bad."

Washington: "We all make money. So does that make us bad? Maybe he's talking about us?"

Streep: "Well, yeah, maybe."

So is this the kind of conversation that Sparks supports or opposes?

Another speaker was New York Rabbi Joshua Plaut, who, according to The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, said that those opposed to abortion and gay marriage should consider other moral issues. "I would argue that there is a strong religious tradition in the United States for other values, and I would describe them as the need and desire for access to jobs, education and health care," he said. "I would describe them as basic human rights. And I would argue that the Democratic Party traditionally, and I believe now at this convention, are embracing those moral concerns."

Still, it's kinda hard to exercise your "basic human right" of employment, education, and health care if you're not allowed to be born.

Beliefnet's Steven Waldman reports, "The most common issue cited is the importance of fighting poverty, which is interesting because that's not one that Kerry talks much about."

He also says of the caucus, "These folks show a combination of urgency and frustration. They believe that by refusing to talk about their religious motivations, they have allowed the Republicans to lay claim to religion as being, inherently, conservative."

Former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry told Waldman that there's a few reasons that Democrats in general and Kerry in specific haven't been talking about religious motivations. "That type of Northeastern Catholic just doesn't like talking about personal spirituality," he said. "You ask a Northeast Catholic to talk about his faith and he says, 'Eh, no. What is this, catechism?'" He added, "Because we want to be politically correct, in particular being sensitive to Jews, that's taken the party to a direction where faith language is soft and opaque."

"We deserve leaders who allow their faith and moral core—our faiths and moral core—to draw us closer together, not drive us farther apart," Elizabeth Edwards said last night. Is this what McCurry means by soft and opaque? The Revealer's Jeff Sharlet thinks so. "It's one thing to engage in bland political speech, but it's another to implicitly claim spiritual authority without providing a clue as to the nature of its source," he says.

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July (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48