(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Daily KOS is not a Forum on Faith [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-19 The designations “atheist” and “believer” should not be relevant to this forum. It is a policy forum, and the framing of issues should be purely secular. The association of religious and political practices has a long history in America. Temperance was justified on religious grounds. Alcohol taxes, in the 1800s, amounted to almost half of government revenues. It was only through religion that the energy was focused to address the social evils it created. The master of the temperance movement controlled a swing voting block (otherwise politically heterogeneous) that allowed him to control elections at the state and federal levels. His power evaporated with the ineffectuality of the 18th Amendment. We are seeing the same thing transpire in the aftermath of Jan 6 and Dobbs. That modern conservatives have seized upon “Christianity” as an embattled swing vote does not mean that they should be allowed the designation. The proper response in this forum is to omit “Christian” as a descriptor when critiquing fascist or misogynist policies — even when the descriptor is claimed by the proponent of those policies. It should be clear that ceding the designation creates division among those here seeking to preserve and expand the ability to express care for our nation and humanity more broadly. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/19/2153809/-Daily-KOS-is-not-a-Forum-on-Faith Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/