It was a move straight out of Amy Sullivan’s playbook. No longer satisfied with letting the Republicans have an alleged monopoly on the “faith vote,” the DNC had hired an accomplished, capable religious leader to be the party’s first-ever director of religious outreach.
The Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson was named senior adviser for religious outreach on [July 23]. She will serve at least through the November elections. “Brenda has dedicated her life to showing us all how religion and politics intersect with integrity,” DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe said in a statement. “We are proud to have her join the DNC in order to spread John Kerry’s positive vision to people of all faiths.”
Peterson is the former director of the fledgling Clergy Leadership Network, an effort to find a new platform for progressive clergy in politics. She was unavailable for comment.
Peterson is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and a former parish pastor in Georgetown, Ky.
The GOP initially responded with its usual bluster — the faith community doesn’t like Dems, Kerry’s a liberal, blah blah blah — but the announcement, made just a week before the convention, was seen as a positive sign. Peterson’s new DNC role, coupled by Kerry’s own willingness to share his religious convictions at the convention, suggested the Dems were making a concerted effort to tell religious voters that they’re welcome under the party’s tent.
Then the conservatives’ oppo machine kicked in — and they found something.
Earlier this year, Peterson and 31 other religious leaders, from across the theological spectrum, filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court about the “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance case. The clergy strongly supported the principle of church-state separation and said America’s faith communities were plenty strong without government “help.” As far as Peterson and her colleagues were concerned, there was no reason for the state to divide the country by including religious language in the Pledge.
In other words, Peterson committed an unpardonable crime: she agreed, on principle, with the atheist who filed the lawsuit in the first place. Because Peterson argued that the government should be neutral with regards to religion, she quickly became a lightening rod for controversy.
Indeed, conservatives went completely berserk. William Donohue, head of the far-right Catholic League, said Peterson’s role with the DNC suggested the Dems were “out of their minds” and compared her position to hiring “a gay basher to reach out to homosexuals.” The religious right and conservative media immediately followed suit.
Alas, the pressure proved too much.
After less than two weeks on the job, the Democratic Party’s first-ever director of religious outreach resigned on Wednesday after her public positions came under fire.
The Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson said it was “no longer possible for me to do my job effectively” after the New York-based Catholic League issued three blistering press releases attacking her positions. “As of today I am resigning my position as the director of religious outreach because it is no longer possible for me to do my job effectively,” Peterson said in a statement to Religion News Service. “I continue to believe, as do leading faith leaders across this country, that John Kerry should be the next president of the United States and that John Kerry’s values of opportunity, family and responsibility are America’s values.”
Because the Dems chose a religious leader who values the First Amendment and wants all Americans, regardless of their beliefs, to be equal, she had to go. It’s a shame.