Democrats give up on religious outreach

Sep 8, 2004 / 22:00 pm

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) decided to end its religious outreach program after it received some negative attention about the credibility of the outreach program’s leadership.

Early last month, the Catholic League exposed Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson, the DNC’s first-ever senior advisor for religious outreach, for her signature on an amicus brief supporting atheist Michael Newdow and his attempt to excise the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. She quit two days later. 

The Catholic League said it has been tapping into the DNC’s Web site on a daily basis to learn who the new religious outreach advisor is, but each search has come up with nothing.

Catholic League president William Donohue said that the most “disturbing” aspect in the whole thing is the “hypocrisy.” He cites Democrat advisor Amy Sullivan in the current edition of Commonweal magazine, as saying, “This may well be remembered as the year of the Democratic Revival, when Democrats stopped allowing religion and God to be co-opted by the Republican Party and started to fight back.” 

Senator John Kerry’s spokesman Michael Meehan reportedly said last week: “We have one of the largest efforts any Democrat has made to reach out to people of faith.”

“Yet the Kerry campaign has silenced its religious outreach director, Mara Vanderslice (blaming us for exposing her resume),” said Donohue, “and the DNC has now given up altogether.

Donohue said the message Democrats are actually sending to people of faith is: “Take a walk. We’ve had it with you religious types.”

“We’ll be sure to get the message out,” vowed Donohue.