Markos Moulitsas: The GOP is losing religion

On the defensive on everything from marriage equality to economic equity, conservatives must now face perhaps the greatest challenge to their movement in decades — an existential threat to the religious right. 

Quite simply, the right no longer “owns” religion.

{mosads}For well over a generation, conservatives have co-opted religion and used it as a political cudgel, making a mockery of central Christian tenets like the Golden Rule and rejection of greed. And in a bid to win over Catholic voters the way they had won Southern evangelicals, conservatives created an entire mythology around liberal persecution of Catholics. 

In 2004, Bill Donahue, a self-styled defender of the Catholic Church, launched a crusade to question the Catholicism of then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), cheering on clerics like Cardinal Raymond Burke, who proclaimed that the Democratic Party was “transforming itself definitively into a party of death” and spoke of denying communion to the pro-choice Kerry.

There was David Carlin in 2007 claiming the “Democratic Party has become the anti-Christian party; for to take sides with the secularists/moral liberals in the culture war … is to take sides against Christianity.” And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) asking, “When did the Democratic Party declare war on the Catholic Church?” And Newt Gingrich declaring the Obama administration was “waging war on the Catholic Church.” 

So it was cathartic to see Pope Francis demote Burke, who was the highest-ranking American at the Vatican, late last year. And last week, when speaking to a joint session of Congress, the pope shook only a single hand when entering the chamber: John Kerry’s. 

Now, with a pope laser-focused on issues like poverty, immigration, global climate change and peace, conservatives are suddenly on the defensive. 

Breitbart’s John Nolte whined on Twitter, “Is this Pope going to say one brave thing? Just ONE that doesn’t suck up to communists and our media?” Ann Coulter wrote, “I’m an American and this is why our founders (not ‘immigrants’!) distrusted Catholics & wouldn’t make them citizens.” 

Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar went so far as to boycot the pope’s address, saying, “When the pope chooses to act and talk like a leftist politician, then he can expect to be treated like one.” Rick Santorum, a candidate for the White House next year, demanded Francis stop talking about climate change, “leaving science to the scientists.” Of course, science and scientists are on the side of the pope on that issue — not to mention that the pope himself is a scientist. 

But don’t look to Donahue to call out this brazen anti-Catholic bigotry. He’s curiously unconcerned with right-wing attacks on the pope and his church. Funny how that turned out. 

Meanwhile, the most dynamic figure in progressive politics today is North Carolina NAACP President Rev. William Barber, chief architect of his state’s Moral Monday movement. “When I go up in the spirit and I listen to the Lord sometimes, I’m reminded that the moral arc of the universe, it might be long, but it bends toward justice,” he preached at last year’s Netroots Nation, speaking of conservative attempts to deny Americans health insurance, economic security and equal justice. “Weeping may endure for a night, Tea Parties may endure for a night, Koch brothers may endure for a night, oppression may endure for a night. But hang in there, make your way to higher ground, because joy still comes in the morning.”

Being on the wrong end of inflection points in the culture war and the economic message, conservatives face yet another one on religion. And this one may prove most damaging of all. 

Moulitsas is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos.