Ah ha! The new approach. This is exciting. I half agree with you, the whining about discrimination has grown too shrill to listen anymore and the irony, that conservatives a decade ago complained about the victim culture of liberals have now embraced that same sense of constant grievance shouldn’t be lost. But, if you try to read between the shrieks, I’m not sure I disagree with Donohue that Democrats’ public worship on the campaign trail at least seems as cynical as the GOP’s piety and there will be different people complaining about it but for the same reason. In the end, this is evidence that we form our fellowships of faith too much for political purposes.

It is important to realize that Donahue is sort of a Catholic Fred Phelps. he speaks for the narrowest and meanest only. Kind of a scary guy. So , most Catholics assume that anything that comes out of his mouth is untrue or exaggerated. They are usually correct in that assumption.

I was hoping that the elections in 2006 would be an eye opener to the Religious Right. Here is just one exit poll of one of hotly contested (and closest) Senate races that was in Virginia (George Allen/Jim Webb). Link is http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/VA/S/01/epolls.0.html Allen was the imcumbant who said some racial slurs. He also did a lot of other shady things. In the week before the election, he heavily infected home with phone advertisements asserting his anti-gay marriage stance. Jim Webb received 35% of the Born Again/Evangelical, 20% of the White Born Again/Evangelical vote, 36% of the vote of people who week to church more than weekly, and 46% of those who went weekly. It was enough to give him the election. What should that tell the Pat Robertson (who lives in my town – Virginia Beach) types? That people who have Jesus as their Lord and Savior aren’t just going to blindly follow all in one party because they are supposdly “Godly”. (David, I am sorry this post took up so much space.)

David, thank you for you comments — I completely agree. Thinker, you are also correct that Bill Donahue only speaks for a narrow slice of Catholics. The “outrage” he expresses over these insignificant matters is ridiculous. I am a Catholic who is regularly disgusted with the tactics and messages of his organization, which claims to stand for me. For a rebuttal to the religious right, we need only to look to Christ himself who did not walk around constantly protesting and complaining about the treatment he received from his detractors. Rather he kept focused on his love for God and for others. The world saw his sincerity and dignity and knew God through this.

Shannon, I appreciate your point but I wonder about what political lessons there are to learn from the 2006 election. All the Democrats learned from 2000-2004 is to end some sentences with “In Jesus name, amen.” So I’m not sure if the GOP will learn not to, but the real issue to me is that I hate to think that voters are training people to modulate their faith for electibility. It’s one thing to have ravening wolves running around pretending to be lambs, it’s another to knit wool sweaters in wolf sizes.

I saw Donohue recently in connection with the “Chocolate Jesus” exhibit in New York City. He was on Anderson Cooper 360, along with the sculptor who created the statue. Regardless of one’s opinion of the “art”, the attitude of Donohue was repulsive. He all but threatened the artist with death; the vitriol coming from him shouldn’t have been associated with any Christian. Whoever made the previous analogy with Fred Phelps is right; two sides of the same coin. Hate is hate, no matter what denomination.

So much for the “promise” that ‘there shall be no religious test for holding public office’! America the Theocracy seems nearer and nearer each day. Come the Apocalypse and all that. Sheesh!