Conscience and Soul

Reading through the interview with Vanderslice, who is one of the religious left political consultants, there's plenty I agree with. I do agree that Democrats should reach out to religious voters and it's something they've been bad at doing, though they've been pretty bad at direct outreach to all voters it seems (hopefully getting better). I also agree that Democrats should more clearly stand up for - and make clear they stand up for - all those things they're supposed to. Still, when I come across language like this I think I'm entitled to get my hackles up a little bit:

I've never been more on fire for the work that I'm doing. I hope that I'll find a way to continue to pioneer this path for the Democrats. I'd love to be involved in continuing to build up the voices of faith in the party and providing the training and infrastructure on the ground to state parties, to future candidates, to reach out to these constituencies, because I just believe that the religious community can be the conscience and the soul of the Democratic Party, and the more we bring that back in, I believe, the stronger our party will be, the better we'll be able to represent our positive vision for the future, and I think it'll help us start winning elections again. So I'm very excited to continue this work.

So, "the religious community can be the conscience and the soul of the Democratic party." Presumably, and if I'm misunderstanding correct me, she's suggesting that basic moral grounding must come from the religious community. Now, this is part and parcel with the basic messages people like me get regularly from people all over the spectrum, that atheists and agnostics lack a conscience and a sense of values, and these things only come from religion and the religious.

I'd never write that "the atheist community can be the conscience and the soul of the Democratic party," though I imagine if I did Bill Donohue would send out a press release. It'd be a highly exclusionary statement, and it would suggest an inherent moral superiority of the godless over the faithful.