"The religious left is back."

Or, so says the Washington Post in an article about liberals who are tired of conservatives monopolizing faith.

Long overshadowed by the Christian right, religious liberals across a wide swath of denominations are engaged today in their most intensive bout of political organizing and alliance-building since the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements of the 1960s, according to scholars, politicians and clergy members.

In large part, the revival of the religious left is a reaction against conservatives' success in the 2004 elections in equating moral values with opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

Religious liberals say their faith compels them to emphasize such issues as poverty, affordable health care and global warming. Disillusionment with the war in Iraq and opposition to Bush administration policies on secret prisons and torture have also fueled the movement.

Amen.

The hate-based "values" movement is sputtering to a stop for a few good reasons. First, it is ugly and it puts people off. Conservatives had a good run, but it's over. We know what they are. They are bigots and zealots. They want to impose not their faith, but their will on everybody who does not believe what they believe. The problem is that the only way to do that is at the point of a gun. They actually believed that the man in the White House was one of them and would assist them in remaking America to conform to their narrow vision. The mistake they made is that he never really was one of them.

Do you know what George W. Bush's religion is? Methodist. He has never actually claimed to be born-again. His speeches used to be sprinkled with religionist rhetoric, but even that doesn't happen so much anymore. He hasn't pushed the anti-gay agenda for one reason: he doesn't believe in it. If Bush thought the Federal Marriage Amendment was a good idea, he would have supported it. Or, at least, he would have said something, anything, positive about it. He hasn't. Bush was supposed to be their boy, but the religious right is so ugly, so full of bile, that even their boy wants to keep them at arms length.

Also, I suspect that Jesus is getting a bit tired of hearing that the only things he cares about are stopping abortion and keeping the gays down. If he cared all that much about either one, I suspect he would have mentioned them at some point. He didn't. He did have quite a lot to say about demonstrating compassion for the poor. I haven't heard Bros. Falwell, Robertson, Perkins or Dobson say much about that lately. Or, ever.

By the way, here is why even Christians should realize that the Federal Marriage Amendment is neither a good idea nor a God idea. Religious conservatives insist that the United States has to take a stand against gay rights because if we don't it will amount to encouraging homosexuality, which will invite God's wrath. Why do they believe this? Because, they say, God judges nations who condone such behavior. Just look, they say, at what happened to Sodom.

But, what really happened to Sodom? Or, more to the point, why did it happen? Religious conservatives will tell you that God destroyed Sodom because it was engaged in the sin of homosexuality. They will refer you to the story about the men who gathered outside of Lot's house and demanded that he send out the angels of the Lord so that they could have sex with them.

Here's the problem with that reasoning. It is contradicted by scripture. The sin of Sodom was not homosexuality. It was... drumroll please... lack of compassion for the poor.

The Bible makes the sin of Sodom explicitly clear in Ezekiel, chapter 16, verse 49:

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

Got that? No? Well, the King James is kind of a difficult read.

Let's try the New Living Translation:

Sodom's sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door.

Now, that's the word of God, through his prophet Ezekiel. As a Christian, I'll take His word over James Dobson's any day.

The religious conservative movement is collapsing because it was built on a weak foundation of ungodly things. Hatred and fear are not Christian. We will be well rid of this poisonous political movement.

The religious left might not be all the way back, but at least we can see it from here. Welcome home.