The conventional wisdom of political consultants was that the way to reach Christian progressives was to mimic the language and tactics used by the Religious Right. When signs of moderation appeared in some religious constituencies, such as Catholics and evangelicals, the idea was for the left to tone down their rhetoric and agenda in order to create coalitions with these groups. These often contradictory approaches appears to have failed.
Part of the problem is that religious leaders, politicians and the media tend to call whatever is not on the hard right of the political spectrum “liberal” when in fact the view is centrist. The other problem is that in order to make certain issues palatable to moderates certain issues must come off the table, such as marriage equality, health-care for all, LGBT rights, and more.
Frederick Clarkson of the Daily Kos writes:
For those of us interested in understanding and better contending with the Religious Right, it has been alarming to watch otherwise seemingly sensible people actually internalize important elements of the views of the Religious Right, while presenting themselves as the Religious Left. This was bad enough, and has been reported and discussed (For example, here and here.) But what has received far less attention were the apparent efforts to silence religious progressives who disagree with this approach.
Read the rest here.