On January 26, at the National Press Club in Washington, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi made some comments on President Bush’s agenda, and in doing so she touched on the subject of values and religion.
Referring to Democrats, Pelosi said that the “best way…for us to speak to people of faith is in terms of the work we do; in terms of the budget, for example. The budget is a document that’s supposed to be a statement of our national values.”
By “people of faith,” Pelosi meant people like the 114 protesters who were arrested last month for blocking the entrance to the Capitol. “We had the people of faith working against this budget. They had events in the Capitol, they were arrested on the steps of the Cannon Building….”
We released the following statement to the news media on Pelosi’s speech:
“Ask anyone leaving church on Sunday what public policy issues motivate ‘people of faith’ and the likely answer will be such things as abortion, same-sex marriage, assisted suicide, drugs, illegitimacy, etc. Ask Nancy Pelosi and she says the federal budget.
“Worse than her ignorance is her disdain for the faithful. For example, she likes to call those who are pro-life ‘anti-choice.’ She not only objected to the ‘Justice Sunday’ event that took place last April in Louisville, she said the rally (which included several prominent people of faith, myself included) was marked by ‘assaults on the courts.’ When her party lost the 2004 presidential election, she arrogantly said, ‘As a devout Catholic, I observe with great regret the intervention of some Catholic bishops who joined evangelical leaders in the political arena.’ In other words, all these religious leaders not only fail to meet her qualifications for ‘the people of faith’ (as she likes to call them), they are a threat to democracy.
“According to Democratic strategist Paul Begala, on the night of the presidential election, former President Bill Clinton told him, ‘you can’t ignore those social, cultural values voters.’ He was right. Moreover, Clinton knows the difference between a budget and a bible.”
