Outreach That Goes Only So Far

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Friday, August 6, 2004 | TERRY EASTLAND

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John Kerry has long been on record with his view that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance don't violate the First Amendment's ban on establishing religion. But days before the Democrats convened in Boston, the Democratic National Committee announced as its first ever director of outreach to religious groups a clergywoman who takes the opposite view.

In February, the Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson was one of 32 clergymen who filed an amicus brief in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Michael Newdow, the case in which Mr. Newdow, an atheist, objected to his daughter's having to say the Pledge of Allegiance -- with its reference to a nation "under God" -- at her public school. The clergymen agreed with him. On Monday, the New York-based Catholic League publicized Ms. Peterson's position, and by Wednesday she had resigned from the DNC, explaining that it was "no longer possible for me to do my job effectively."

It was an embarrassing episode but an emblematic one. Of late the Democrats have had problems trying to overcome their image as a secular party. Earlier this year the Kerry campaign hired as its religious outreach director Mara Vanderslice, who had worked in a similar capacity for Howard Dean. Mr. Dean's most striking comment on religion, you'll remember, came when he located Job in the New Testament. When the Catholic League (ever the watchdog) noted Ms. Vanderslice's left-wing activist past and said that she was more suited for a job with Fidel Castro, the campaign quarantined her from the press.