I agreed with Barack Obama

until I kept reading.

Sen. Obama: Democrats Must Compete for Evangelicals

WASHINGTON — Sen. Barack Obama chastised fellow Democrats on Wednesday for failing to "acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people," and said the party must compete for the support of evangelicals and other churchgoing Americans.

"Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation. Context matters," the Illinois Democrat said in remarks prepared for delivery to a conference of Call to Renewal, a faith-based movement to overcome poverty.

So far so good. Democrats have often ignored the fact that "faith" - however abstract and obscure they try to make it - is an essential part of someone that can't be turned off by laws.

I even agreed with him here.

"It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase `under God,"' he said. "Having voluntary student prayer groups using school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats."

Then I read the rest of the article.

"Kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt I heard God's spirit beckoning me," he said of his walk down the aisle of the Trinity United Church of Christ. "I submitted myself to his will and dedicated myself to discovering his truth."

The United Church of Christ? That says a lot about the kind of "faith" he embraces, as I found out in the following paragraph.

Obama said millions of Christians, Muslims and Jews have traveled similar religious paths, and that is why "we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse. ... In other words, if we don't reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons will continue to hold sway."

Just what is the "field of religious discourse?" It's like the thing I read from the Interfaith Alliance in which point number 2 of 10 points on political campaigns was this: "Religious groups are not voting blocs." Yeah, and Iowa smells nice. Like it or not, the process is what it is, and as long as they try to ignore the facts, Republicans will continue winning. That's where Obama gets this thing right.

And then he just had to throw in one last shot at the all-powerful "separation of church and state" - a phrase never found in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence.

Obama mentioned leaders of the religious right briefly, saying they must "accept some ground rules for collaboration" and recognize the importance of the separation of church and state.

In other words, conservatives must come to the debate on Democrats' terms.

Not gonna happen. Especially when it's a debate that conservatives are winning in a landslide.

H/T: Pat.