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Thursday, June 7, 2012

The ‘God gap’: Dan Gilgoff on how Barack Obama has narrowed it, Islam and Politics, NewAgeIsla.com

Islam and Politics
The ‘God gap’: Dan Gilgoff on how Barack Obama has narrowed it
By Dan Gilgoff

Four years later, it has at times seemed that the Democrats might be the beneficiaries of politicised religion this time around. John McCain has long had an uneasy relationship with the Christian Right. He opposes a constitutional ban on gay marriage, favours federal funding for expanded embryonic stem cell research — a practice many conservative evangelicals and Catholics liken to abortion — and branded Christian Right bosses like Falwell and Pat Robertson ‘agents of intolerance’ during his 2000 run for the White House. Bush wound up beating McCain in that year’s Republican primaries largely by marshalling the Christian Right against him.

This year, McCain won the Republican primaries by relying on moderate Republican voters, leaving Christian Right darlings like Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney to split the GOP’s evangelical and pro-life base in key primary states like Iowa and Florida. McCain is frequently tone-deaf to evangelical sensitivities, publicly rejecting endorsements by two prominent televangelists last spring because of controversial remarks in their pasts. ‘Very troubling,’ Tony Perkins, one of Washington’s most powerful evangelical activists, said at the time. ‘It would be very difficult to overcome this.’

http://newageislam.com/the-%E2%80%98god-gap%E2%80%99--dan-gilgoff-on-how-barack-obama-has-narrowed-it/islam-and-politics/d/898


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