To: Bill who wrote (10529 ) 4/5/2001 10:36:59 AM From: Lane3 Respond to Religious left. prominent lefties who have a religious association . Jackson, Sharpton, and others who cut their teeth on the civil rights movement, I really don't think of as religious. The civil rights movement came out of the black church. I don't know how much of that was because it was a religious issue and how much was just because black leadership was concentrated in the church. At that time, young black men didn't have a lot of career options. It's hard to say how many chose to become preachers because they had a real religious calling given that career paths were so few. They preached during the movement and part of the message was religious in that it's pretty obviously un-Christian to make a subset of the population sit in the back of the bus. But a lot of it was just that the church was where the infrastructure was for pulling something like that off. After the initial thrust, the civil rights movement was more about lawyers than preachers. I tend to think of Jackson and Sharpton as lawyers. I don't know to what extent their speeches still are religious in nature. It's been a long time since I've been able to sit still and listen to them. Their oratory has the style of a preacher (which I don't find attractive) but I don't know how much religious substance. When I think of them, I sure don't think first of religion, I think lawyer or special-interest lobbyist, not minister.the relative religiosity of lefties and righties is concerned, almost everyone is religious, or at least claims to be. I don't know that the median leftie is any more or less religious than the median rightie. Citizens on the right are certainly louder about it right now because they feel threatened by the judicial system and popular culture. Maybe religious lefties and righties just prioritize their sins differently. religious left, as a political movement , I just don't see it. I see no religious left agenda at all.
