Losing faith in Democrats' religious outreach [Conscience Cause group started by religious leaders]

Houston Chronicle ^ | June 3, 2012 | Rachel Zoll

[Cincinatus' Wife]

.....Recently, evangelical, Orthodox Jewish, Catholic and Mormon leaders helped form in every state a new network of caucuses dedicated to religious liberty, with the birth control mandate as their initial focus.

The advocacy group Conscience Cause formed in February to rescind or revise the birth control mandate. The organization's board includes Jim Nicholson, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican under President George W. Bush, and Republican strategists Mary Matalin and Ed Gillespie. Gillespie is an adviser to the Romney campaign.

But some of the president's traditional allies are among the critics.

The Tablet, the British Catholic newsweekly read widely by American Catholic liberals, said in a recent editorial that Obama "has perhaps been misled into thinking that the widespread dissent to these teachings among Catholics means he can disregard the views of the bishops without having to pay an electoral penalty."

Four years ago, Douglas Kmiec, an anti-abortion former official in the Reagan administration, backed Obama, drawing widespread condemnation from fellow conservative Catholics. In a column last month in the liberal U.S. newspaper the NationalCatholicReporter, Kmiec praised the University of Notre Dame for suing the administration over the narrow religious exemption in the birth control rule. In 2009,Notre Dame withstood intense criticism from American bishops and honored Obama, despite the president's support for abortion rights.

"Unwittingly, perhaps, the president has allowed his appointees to drift into the secular lane and stay there," Kmiec wrote.

Catholics, who comprised about one-quarter of the electorate in 2008, haven't voted in a bloc for decades, but the candidate who wins the most Catholic votes usually wins the election.

Some Democrats see no problem with consigning faith outreach to the sidelines. They argue that attempts to please moderate and conservative religious groups have kept Obama from fully enacting some policies important to party members......

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Earlier Post

[fella]

With Mary Matalin in it I’d keep a wary eye on this organization.