The man who directed Barack Obama’s faith outreach efforts in 2012 harshly criticized a new Democratic National Committee resolution that celebrated nonbelievers and criticized conservative Christians.
Michael Wear, who worked on faith-based initiatives during Obama’s first term, slammed the resolution, which praised the religiously unaffiliated as the “largest religious group within the Democratic Party” and implicitly criticized conservative religious Americans for “misplaced claims of ‘religious liberty.'”
“These people actually approved a resolution with the claim: ‘the religiously unaffiliated demographic represents the largest religious group within the Democratic Party,'” Wear tweeted. “Because protestants are all divided with their denominations, but the religiously unaffiliated are coherent.”
“I just want to be clear. This is both politically stupid, but also, just stupid on a fundamental level that transcends electoral politics,” said Wear.
I just want to be clear. This is both politically stupid, but also, just stupid on a fundamental level that transcends electoral politics.
— Michael Wear (@MichaelRWear) August 30, 2019
Wear suggested the resolution portends challenges for Democrats’ ability to win religious voters in 2020.
“Trump is absolutely going to run this into the ground, and not just with white evangelicals,” said Wear.
About 80% of white evangelicals supported President Trump in 2016. After the election, Wear told the Atlantic the result among white evangelicals “shows not just ineptitude, but the ignorance of Democrats in not even pretending to give these voters a reason to vote for them.” Trump also won a slight majority of Catholic voters.
The resolution in question argues that “the nonreligious have often been subjected to unfair bias and exclusion in American society, particularly in the areas of politics and policymaking where assumptions of religiosity have long predominated.” It also criticizes “misplaced claims of ‘religious liberty'” when it is used to “justify public policy that has threatened the civil rights and liberties of many Americans, including but not limited to the LGBT community, women, and ethnic and religious/nonreligious minorities.”
A majority of self-identified Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults identify as Christian, roughly split between Catholics, evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, and historically black Protestants. As of 2014, unaffiliated Americans accounted for almost 30% of all Democrats.
