Reader A sent in a letter written to Mr. Waldman:
There we go again... Yet another attack on secular liberals, where you again go on and on and on about how the Left's hostility to religion is keeping away the religious.
Now, you've been asked many, many times before to name names: Who are these dastardly secular liberals who mock the pious and thereby turn off oodles of potential voters? What are their organizations? How are they so very influential? Where are their mission statements, their press releases? You have never answered.
I won't ask you the same question again. Instead, I'm wondering how you can avoid feeling embarrassed, essentially writing the same piece over and over in different online magazines, while never addressing the basic flaw in your argument: You have no evidence of any secular liberals whose unrestrained disdain for religion has turned off anyone (no, Dawkins, Dennett, PZ Myers, and a few other academics and bloggers with hardly any connection to politics or influence over the Democrats, do not count; no, quoting Michael Lerner repeating your premise with different words, but providing no evidence either, doesn't count; and no, being against theocracy does not make one hostile to religion, only to religious authoritarianism).
There's no doubt that the religious right is what passes for the face of religion in this country. That's not the fault of secular liberals. Indeed, it's you fault. It's the religious left that has allowed the religious right to reign supreme. You idiotically attack fellow liberals who are at worse indifferent to religion, instead of taking on the religious right directly -- and by not challenging the media and the politicians who treat the religious right as the country's official religious authority.
By attacking secular liberals who merely want everybody to be judged by the content of their character, regardless of how pious they claim to be, you are providing aid and comfort to the religious right and the forces of religious and political authoritarianism that are behind it.
Bravo Steve! You managed to join forces with Tom DeLay, since apparently you have the same enemy, the vast anti-Christian conspiracy led by secular liberals. I am surprised you were not a featured speaker on his recent "War on Christians" conference.