I'm Wary of a "Religious Left."

The NewDonkey tells us that there's an emerging "religious left" at work, and while I can see the strategic advantages of having a thriving one, I am skeptical about it. We're a secular republic, after all and while religion is a major part of our society and while it will certainl influence government, I can see all sorts of potenial schisms here, along the lines of the schisms within the Republican party between the free-market conservatives, the libertarian conservatives and the religious conservatives.

Obviously, the Republicans have done a great job of bringing all of those factions together.

And there are places where liberal values and religious values meet. For example, one could interpret God giving man "dominion over nature" as a call to environmental responsibility.

However, the point of our society is that we don't live by any interpretation of "God's law." The Constitution allows you to do things that the Bible doesn't. Religious liberals absolutely must have a "live and let live" attitude with regards to social issues. The Religious Right doesn't have that. It'd be nice to believe that, by virtue of their being liberals, this won't be an issue. But there are already so many Democrats, in the old labor states particularly, who really have a conservative cultural sensibility, so this can't be taken for granted.