The Democrats' Tin Ear

This column was written by Brian Healy, a CBS News producer in Washington.

It was about 4 a.m. on the election set of CBS News in New York as Election Day melted into the next morning. The questioner was Richard Reeves, the political journalist, columnist and now presidential historian.

The phrase "moral values" had started showing up on the list of important issues to voters as soon as the exit polls data began to flow in. I was working with Ed Bradley trying to decipher that information. Moral values were now leading the list of issues on voter's minds, ahead of the economy, terrorism, the war in Iraq, health care and education.

As Bradley began to go on air to talk about "moral values," I jotted down a few examples on a card and handed it to him: "Abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage, prayer in schools, the attempt to take 'under God' out of the Pledge of Allegiance, the removal of the Ten Commandments from court houses."

The list could have been much larger: excessive violence and sexuality on television, movies and especially in music; coarsening of language in public speech; provocative dress by teenagers; condoms on the shelf of the nurse's office in public high schools.

All of these disparate elements helped fuel George W. Bush's return to the White House. The Democrats had not seen it coming.

There are tens of millions of people in the United States whose religious beliefs inform everything they do. They take their beliefs into their work places, into every aspect of their lives.

George Bush won an overwhelming majority of them. Democrats need to ask whether their party has developed a tin ear to these people's concerns.

On these and other issues, the Democratic elites have told people of religious faith: Leave your religious beliefs at home.

A stark example of this occurred in 1992 at the Democratic convention in New York. Bill Clinton's first nominating convention. Robert P. Casey was the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania. He was a successful politician supported by working-class Democrats, union members, minorities and millions of Pennsylvanians.

He was scheduled to deliver a speech stating that his party's mission was to fight for the underdog -- the sick, the old, the poor. However, he also wanted to included the "unborn."

He never gave that speech. He got the hook!

I remember seeing him standing in the crowd at Madison Square Garden instead of on the stage. His beliefs were not welcome.

Fast forward to this week's election.

In almost every important social or cultural discussion of the past decade, the Democratic Party has either shunned religiously based Americans, or ignored them.

On abortion, Senator John Kerry said he would not pick any judge for the Supreme Court who did not fully support Roe v. Wade. He and his party take this position knowing that while most Americans support the right to choose, most Americans are uncomfortable with abortion and do support some restrictions, such as parental consent. Most Americans support a ban on partial birth abortions.

On gay marriage, 11 states this week defined marriage as a union of a man and a woman. One of them was Ohio, perhaps the key state in preventing John Kerry from winning. Senator Kerry had said, yes, he believed marriage was between a man and a woman, but, no, he would not support a constitutional amendment giving that concept the force of law.

Many people of religious faith know someone who is gay. Opponents to gay marriage are not all bigots. They just believe that gay marriage defies centuries of history, culture and even natural law. They do not feel the Democratic Party is even open to their arguments -- much less actually sharing their concerns.

On issues of school prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, vouchers for private schools, many people of faith either sense hostility from Democrats, or hear nothing but silence.

George Bush talks freely about his religious faith. Many religious people welcome his words even while they may struggle with some of his policies. They are less comforted when Democrats suggest such talk is inappropriate for a president, that the separation of church and state mandates that expressions of faith remain inside houses of worship and out of public debate.

This is perhaps the key: many people of faith believe the Democratic Party looks at them as inferior. Somehow, people who value their faith are not very bright. They are perceived as anti-intellectuals who drag their knuckles on the ground.

Some post-election examples: a Hollywood screenwriter sent me an e-mail bemoaning the results, and the power of the religious right whom, he said, were consumed by what went on in other people's bedrooms.

A New York colleague was disgusted by the results, unable to understand how people's concerns about morality would trump their economic concerns. Both were angry Democrats.

Democrats are not bereft of moral issues.

Moral values are more than issues of sex. Social and economic justice are moral issues. There is nothing moral about opposing an increase in the minimum wage, or loosening restrictions on air and water pollution, or giving tax cuts to millionaires. On these issues, perhaps enough Americans to elect a President side with the Democrats.

Democrats, however, need to start putting their arguments into faith-based language. More important, if Democrats continue to act as if religion is the crazy uncle in the closet, people of faith will view them with suspicion.

Democrats will suffer at the ballot box if they are tone deaf to social morality and refuse to talk about them in moral terms. They don't have to abandon their principles, but they do have to be willing to listen to people of religious faith inside the Democratic Party. Many Democrats are uncomfortable with abortion on demand. Many Democrats favor civil unions for homosexuals but oppose gay marriage.

Bill Clinton knew this. He signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It stated that if one state defined marriage to include gay unions, other states did not have to recognize gay marriages in their own states. President Clinton may not have been enthusiastic about the law, but he signed it knowing it was a popular thing to do. It was also good politics.

President Clinton was comfortable talking about religious faith. Whether he was in a black Baptist Church or a Catholic Cathedral, Bill Clinton's words and body language embraced people of faith, even if his private actions inevitably drove some away.

President Jimmy Carter also embraced his faith. In the White House, he often returned to Georgia to teach Sunday school. It seems that southern Democrats do not fear the language of religion as much as their counterparts on the East and West Coasts do. There might be a lesson in that as Democrats start examining their consciences in the wake of their Election Day defeat.

By Brian Healy