Now that the exit polls showed that “moral values” motivated a lot of voters to elect Republicans, we’re going to enjoy the spectacle of Democrats trying to use “God talk” to woo back those voters. It should be interesting.
For example, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, a pro-abortion Catholic, was on CNN’s Lou Dobbs show, started talking about God and got called on it by Dobbs.
PELOSI: ... And we have to define what values are. Values are, of course, being persons of faith and family and love of country. They also are about ministering to the needs, as it says in the Gospel of Matthew, of the least of our brethren.
So we have to grow the middle class and expand it. We have to protect the environment, which is God’s creation. We have to meet the needs of the American people. We have to reach to a higher purpose, and I believe we have that opportunity now.
DOBBS: Minority Leader, I’m just—I’m just a simple fellow, secular as I can be. Are we going to hear every politician now, because of exit polls, start couching every issue in moral or religious terms?
PELOSI: I believe that you will see more of that, but I quite agree with you, that we have to get to the issues that are the role of government. I think on the values side, the so-called religious issues side, we have to enlarge that issue, because what we’re in danger now in our country is the blurring of the issue of church and state. But I as a devout Catholic was concerned when bishops—some bishops, not all bishops said that it was a sin to vote for John Kerry. That’s absolutely wrong. And that—our own Constitution is at stake if they think that they can blur the issue of church and state.
So I think that, as President Kennedy said when he ran in 1960, imagine then, they didn’t want religion to have a strong role. At that time, he said, “The issue is not what church I believe in, the issue is what America I believe in.” And that’s where we have to take this issue.
First, notice how she backtracks when Dobbs asks her if all these politicians are going to start using religious language. And how clumsily it sounds when she does it. Not at all natural.
It’s also funny to see her weigh in on a theological issue: “... some bishops, not all bishops said that it was a sin to vote for John Kerry. That’s absolutely wrong.” Thank you, Rep. Pelosi, for your theological judgment. May we expect an encyclical from your office on the matter? If this is how the Democrats are going to react to this election for the next two or four years, it’s going to be very entertaining.
