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08:06 PM CDT on Sunday, August 24, 2008
DENVER — Democrats touted Sunday’s worship service as a celebration of tolerance and inclusion and reaching across the religious aisle. But there are limits. The guy outside the convention center with a bullhorn and a sign that declared “Allah is not God” didn’t get in. And then there was the anti-abortion protester inside who jumped up and started yelling just as the choir opened with a gospel song. “Obama’s a baby killer!” he shouted. “Boo!” responded the crowd, which broke into robust applause when a policewoman hauled him away. Democrats, who’ve been overshadowed by Republicans when it comes to combining politics and faith, are making an effort this year to show they’ve got religion, too. The party’s nominee-to-be, Barack Obama, talks easily about religious faith. The convention boasts a series of religion-friendly panel discussions all week: “Getting Out the Faith Vote” and “How an Obama Administration Will Engage People of Faith.” On Sunday, the party held its first-ever interfaith service at a national party convention. “We didn’t need to bring faith to the party,” said the Rev. Leah Daughtry, a Pentecostal pastor from Washington. “Faith was already here.” The service attracted 3,000 people and began with a procession — a rabbi, an imam, a Catholic priest, a Buddhist — led by four Native Americans beating drums. Over the altar was a huge logo of vague religious heritage: a circle enclosing a cloud-like ring around an abstract sunburst. Sort of the Great Mandala meets suburban megachurch. If the Republican appeal to religion has been to rally the right, the Democrats’ goal is to engage the center. To that end, Democrats say they’re expanding the faith agenda beyond the religious right’s litmus-test issues of abortion and gay marriage. “Poverty is on the agenda as a religious issue, and climate change and Iraq, health care and Darfur,” said Jim Wallis of the liberal group Sojourners. “Sanctity of life is on the agenda, but defined more broadly and deeply to include 30,000 kids who died yesterday of poverty and disease,” he said. “Jesus would have cared more for those kids than he would about a gay marriage amendment in Ohio.” The speakers extolled the virtues of the expanded agenda, sparking applause, although there was an awkward moment when the Rev. Charles Blake, bishop of the Church of God in Christ, declared himself pro-life. “Surely we cannot be pleased with the routine administration of millions of surgically terminated pregnancies,” he thundered from the stage. “If we do not resist at this point, at what point do we resist?” A smattering of applause. He went on to say that, although Christians are sharply divided, they can find common ground in supporting programs to reduce the number of abortions. A standing ovation. In 2006, Democrats cut the GOP’s advantage among weekly churchgoers to 12 percentage points, down from 18 percentage points in 2004. The Obama campaign hopes to make some inroads among white evangelicals. And the selection of Sen. Joe Biden could help woo white Catholics, a key swing vote that has backed the winner in each of the last eight presidential races. Chris Zanoni grew up Catholic, although she now attends a Unitarian church in Parker, Colo. She’s an Obama supporter who attended Sunday’s service and says she’s happy that this year, her party is preaching what it practices. “I’ve got family values, too,” she said. 
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