And Stay Off!

Not too long ago Barak Obama says the right "kidnapped" religion and the religious voter:

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Sen. Barack Obama told a church convention Saturday that some right- wing evangelical leaders have exploited and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division.

"Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked," the Democratic presidential candidate said in remarks prepared for delivery before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ.

"Part of it's because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who've been all too eager to exploit what divides us," the Illinois senator said.

Source: Breitbart – Obama Says Some Have `hijacked' Faith Barak said that before the national convention of the United Church of Christ back in June of '07. Anyway, I commented fully on that back then.

Now he says:

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Source: Obama on small-town Pa.: Clinging to religion, guns, xenophobia – Ben Smith on the PoliticoHmmm, does that sound like the same view of religion to you? So is religion something "typical white people" cling to like a security blanket or is it a vital uniting force kidnapped by the right?

Its more like the left kicked religion off of the bus. Obama being a Harvard educated Democrat fits right in with the stereotype of those showing religion the door and here we have Obama essentially asking What's the Matter with Kansas.

Now, I know there are deeply religious people who vote Democrat (a deacon in my church is annoyingly outspoken about this outside of Church) but they are more and more becoming the exception than the rule (unless we want to talk about the strain of faith such as Jeremiah Wright). It was not just Bill Donahue who objected when John Edwards elevated Amanda Marcotte & Melissa McKewen again we turn to Ben Smith:

As the flap over alleged anti-Catholic writings by two John Edwards campaign bloggers devolves into a shouting match between conservative religious voices and liberal bloggers, some members of the "religious left" say they feel – again – shoved to the margins of the Democratic Party.

"We're completely invisible to this debate," said Eduardo Penalver, a Cornell University law professor who writes for the liberal Catholic journal Commonweal. He said he was dissatisfied with the Edwards campaign's response. "As a constituency, the Christian left isn't taken all that seriously," Penalver said.

Source: Edwards Blogger Flap Discomforts Religious Left – Ben Smith for the Politico That is, the religious left is walking around with kick-me signs and are laughed at when not in the room.