Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, made a surprise appearance at the faith caucus this afternoon. His microphone was muffled, so here are the portions I could catch:
“For those of you who are from new England … you know it’s hard to talk about religion. I think we’ve made a lot of progress for the last couple of years.
“We in the Democratic party don’t believe that you have to change your values in order to cater to people of faith. I mean broadly including people who are evangelicals … faith is faith. Faith in God is something that is common to human beings.
“We talk about faith differently than Republicans do. In this party, we have other values that matter to us. We talk about respecting everybody’s faith.
“It is important for us to use an important word – separation of church and state. Everybody is entitled to follow their faith. It was the dream of the founding fathers. We speak differently about our faith, it doesn’t mean it’s less important. It matters how you live, not necessarily what you say every Sunday.
“We are reaching out to voters of faith, let voters of faith decide which party represents their values.”
