Former US Senator John Danforth (R), who is also an Episcopal minister, fears the GOP is being hijacked by the religious conservative wing of the party. He writes an op-ed in today's NYT that includes the following:
I do not fault religious people for political action. Since Moses confronted the pharaoh, faithful people have heard God's call to political involvement. Nor has political action been unique to conservative Christians. Religious liberals have been politically active in support of gay rights and against nuclear weapons and the death penalty. In America, everyone has the right to try to influence political issues, regardless of his religious motivations.
The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement (italics mine).
When government becomes the means of carrying out a religious program, it raises obvious questions under the First Amendment. But even in the absence of constitutional issues, a political party should resist identification with a religious movement. While religions are free to advocate for their own sectarian causes, the work of government and those who engage in it is to hold together as one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive. For politicians to advance the cause of one religious group is often to oppose the cause of another.
Does Danforth overstate his case, or are his fears grounded in reality? Does this have anything to do with the movement in Ohio to recruit 2000 religious leaders to push the local GOP to the right? Has the church overstepped its bounds, or is the party too open to religious influence?
UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt responds to Danforth.

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