Amy Sullivan irritates the hell out of me. She had an article in Salon earlier this week, and as usual, it has just enough validity to interest me, but it was swaddled in so much Christian garbage that you want to throw it all away. The part I can agree with is that she's complaining about the ineffectuality of the religious left; and that's entirely true. The religious left has been an abysmal failure, a simpering collection of timid, ingrown ditherers that has allowed the religious right to stomp all over them. Unfortunately, Sullivan's solution to everything is to encourage the Democratic party to embrace the religious left more strongly.

That's right. The political party that has been weak and half-hearted, allowing conservative thugs to run them over repeatedly, is supposed to acquire vast new strengths by joining hands with the most feeble religious group. Right. And by fusing the properties of soggy noodles and cream of wheat, I will build a strong new material, tougher than titanium.

And Sullivan engages in the kind of historical blindness so common in arrogant Christianity.

It's nearly impossible to page through American history without coming across political causes that were driven either partly or entirely by progressive people of faith -- abolition, women's suffrage, labor reforms of the progressive era, civil rights, and any number of antiwar movements.

Jebus. Somebody get Sullivan a copy of Freethinkers, stat.

Of those struggles listed, only two impress me as having had a significant contribution from a religious perspective: the modern civil rights movement benefitted greatly from the strong and consistent efforts of black Southern churches, and a few fringe religious groups, the Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses, have also set a good example of conscientious opposition to war. We have a theistic majority, and of course religious people have been important participants, but so have non-religious people…and it seems to me that secular interests have been more consistently on the progressive side than have religious interests. For every church that fought for abolition or suffrage or civil rights, there were two that supported slavery or the oppression of women or the second-rank status of blacks, and a dozen that sat on their thumbs and did nothing. When religion is a motivating force on both sides of the equation, I'll be charitable and ignore the fact that more often than not it has sided with repression, and suggest that we cancel it out as a relevant factor.

As for the suggestion that labor reforms were driven by religious interests—that is an egregious rewriting of history. Labor has long been tarred with the slurs of Communism, Socialism, Atheism, and Anarchism in this country. I refuse to grant the hard earned credit of vociferous Reds to milksop Christians after the fact.

Unfortunately, that's not the only strange deviation from reality in the article.

Those members of the religious left that did remain politically active often seemed like caricatures of left-wing activists, agitating to save baby seals, Arctic wildlife, third-world orphans with only the faintest of biblical appeals marshaled on their behalf. While religious groups were some of the most vocal opponents of the recent war in Iraq, their unique voices got lost within a sea of peace slogans.

Wait, wait…we'd do a better job saving baby seals if the appeals were more biblical? What exactly is she suggesting here: don't waste time on baby seals? Find bible quotes to save baby seals? The religious left would do better if they shouted down those damned secularists tainting the purity of their goals?

And I'm sorry, Ms. Sullivan, but there is nothing at all unique about religious groups. This is America. We get religion with all of our news.

Here, though, is where Sullivan sinks to a new low. Take a look at this comment:

More damningly, to the extent that the religious left continued to exist, it became tied in the public's mind with secularists. "The positions of the religious left and secularists on crucial questions seem indistinguishable," says Joseph Loconte of the Heritage Foundation. "And that hurts them politically."

I don't even need to mention that this progressive Christian is quoting a fellow of the heinously conservative Heritage Foundation approvingly: look at the message. Secularists are bad. It hurts us that they share ideals with us. There is no hiding what she is trying to say, which is that the Democrats need to distance themselves from atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, and freethinkers. This is the kind of divisive idea I'm sure the Heritage Foundation would love to see get wider play in the Democratic party.

Maybe, instead, she should take a look at what those secularists in her party are actually saying and doing. They are supporting civil rights, women's rights, economic fairness, fiscal responsibility, respectful partnerships with the other nations of the world…they are supporting the Democratic party platform. They share her values in the role of America's government, and only differ in that they don't go to church on Sunday, something totally irrelevant to politics. This is "damning"?

I think we secularists should try to praise poor Amy Sullivan. Despite the affliction of her religious background, she has still managed to acquire the good moral values of the majority of freethinkers. It does not hurt us to embrace even people of faith who support our ideals.

Although, I don't know, this kind of lie does test the limits of my tolerance:

The Kerry campaign ran just one television ad that mentioned its candidate's background as an altar boy: It was in Spanish, appearing only on a Spanish-language network. And when the candidate spoke about faith (which he often did, charging that Bush was a "man [who] claims to have faith, but has no deeds"), it was almost always in front of an African-American audience, fueling charges that Kerry's faith was insincere and brought out only for political purposes.

Hey, fellow atheists! Was there anyone of you who was following the political campaign who was not repeatedly informed that Kerry was a Catholic? Who did not hear it from his own mouth on multiple television appearances? In English?

This crap Sullivan is spouting is pure Republican propaganda, the same stuff they were spreading freely during the election, that Bush was the One True Christian and Kerry was a fraud. We know better. Kerry was a standard issue Christian politician, no better or worse on religious issues than most, and he was able to express his religious beliefs in a way that no atheist politician could ever hope to do.

Secular progressives voted for him anyway, with little concern about his faith. We also voted for Jimmy Carter, probably the most sincerely Christian president of recent times. If Barack Obama runs for president some day, even the most atheistical liberals (like me!) will vote for him without hesitating over his Christianity.

Can anyone imagine Sullivan voting for a secular humanist running on even an impeccably progressive platform?

It seems to me that what the Democratic party ought to do is exactly the opposite of what Sullivan suggests. Let's embrace our inclusive secularism. We want Christians and Jews and Moslems and atheists to all participate in running this country.

Let's all make freethought a guiding principle of the party. Freethought doesn't mean anti-god-belief, although it can include it; it does imply anti-religious thought, though, in the sense of opposing organized religion. We do have a tradition of anti-authoritarianism in America that is almost as strong as the anti-intellectualism that the Republicans have tapped into so effectively—why not use it? Mobilize people by appealing to that "rugged individualism" we all like, tell 'em we don't need no stinkin' popes or preachers or church elders or Falwells or Robertsons to instruct us in how to think about god. Encourage personal religious belief. Get the televangelists out of office. Get the sanctimonious prigs off our backs.

I think there's a germ of a message in there that would draw in a good number of those rural red-staters and NASCAR fans, too.