God "In or Out" for the Dems?

What a mess the Democrats made of things when it comes to public relations with most American voters yesterday.  I call it "public relations" because it appears quite clear that the Democrats themselves have already moved into being a "majority secularist" party.  But because most Americans are decidedly religious, there was a last-minute effort to change their party platform to introduce one very limited reference to God - when the actual official process of the DNC had previously and specifically left out any mention at all of God.  The Democrats are clearly secular, but trying to pretend not to be - or at least trying to limit the PR nightmare of openly telling the American people that they are secularists.

'Secular,' of course, means "denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis."

So what actually happened?  Well, prior to party national conventions, there is a meeting held to develop the wording to be proposed for the party's platform.  This platform is then presented at the convention and - as I understand it - generally accepted as is.  There can be proposed last minute amendments, however, in convention.

So the Democrats had - for the first time in their history as I understand it - removed from their previous platform any reference to God, and also the traditional reference calling for Jerusalem to be considered the undivided capital of the nation of Israel.

These are both very unpopular positions with the American people and with American Jews in particular (who have traditionally voted more for Democrats - but may not this year).  The Republicans strongly criticized the Democrats for this change in their platform.  And the Democrats caved - or as they would say 'amended the platform to conform with President Obama's personal views of the matter.'

And what was the "big change?"  Well, in addition to putting wording back about Jerusalem, one single, flimsy reference to God was cautiously inserted back in, referring to encouraging the development of people's "God-given talents."  Really.  Only that, nothing more about God in the entire platform.  Not even a reference to "God-given rights."

Or did they cave?  You can watch the video below, but when the call went out to the delegates to approve these changes, it appears approximately equally divided.  Despite there being a requirement that 2/3 of the delegates agree to the changes for them to carry, the chair simply declared that he thought there were 2/3 in favor and made the change.  After that, there were long and loud boos from many of the delegates.  And more than a little chaos.

The whole thing is certainly a "PR" nightmare for the Dems.  But more than that, it's revealing of a party that has become more and more nakedly and aggressively secular, which is an astounding mismatch with the American people generally.