Sawt Falasteen - Keeping the faith -- and getting voters: Democrats get religion in Chicago

On the convention floor, sessions start and end with interfaith prayer, but in the "DemPalooza" expo across town, things are more competitive, with numerous faith groups jostling for attention.

Most aren't proselytizing -- the goal tends to be getting religious people to vote, rather than getting voters to be religious.

"We're trying to convince Catholic voters that they're not going to go to Hell if they vote for a Democrat," said Patrick Carolan, the founder of Catholics Vote for Common Good.

The United States is overwhelmingly Christian -- two-thirds of the population identify with the world's largest religion -- and white members of the faith tend to be staunchly conservative.

But Carolan notes that the vote share for Republican White House nominee and former president Donald Trump among white Catholics was down to about 50 percent in 2020, from 65 percent in 2016.

His group has been on the ground in battleground states, pushing the flock to see that "being Catholic is more than just abortion" and that they should prioritize candidate quality over that single issue.

- Muslim voters -

Meanwhile, the US Council of Muslim Organizations Candidate Action Network has been busy on the expo floor spreading the word about its "one million Muslim voters" registration drive.

Volunteer Ayoub Razick said the work was an attempt to reverse the political disengagement that resulted from bigotry directed at the community after the September 11, 2001, attacks by Al-Qaeda.

"That sort of demonization still goes on today, but we're kind of past that, right?" he said.

"It's not 2016 anymore, it's 2024 and we're in this position where we're trying to organize the Muslim vote... and essentially increase Muslim voter turnout in this election and future elections."

At the stall immediately next door, the Center for Freethought Equality was signing up converts to its mission to get people elected into office who will promote the rights of non-believers.

The Public Religion Research Institute released a poll last year showing that church attendance is declining among Americans, with one-third now saying religion is not important to them at all.

"We try to make sure that people get elected that will do things like support the separation of church and state," and make sure that they don't put one specific religious doctrine into law, like Christian nationalists are trying to do," said Howard Katz, the group's president.

- Faith required? -

There is a maxim in US politics that it is difficult to make it to public office if you do not at least pay lip service to the importance of faith.

Katz says the idea that you can't get ahead in politics unless you profess to be religious is "fading."

But try telling that to the Democratic Party, which has been wearing its faith on its sleeve in Chicago.

The star of the show, presidential nominee Kamala Harris, is a Baptist who often talks in public about the lessons of religion, while her running mate Tim Walz calls himself a "Minnesota Lutheran."

Speaker after speaker on the convention floor -- from South Carolina congressman Jim Clyburn to Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia -- have referenced scripture.

Trump himself has done a masterful job of winning and keeping white evangelical support, but is not a churchgoer and is occasionally accused of pandering in his ostentatious displays of faith.

He came in for harsh criticism recently as he hawked $60 "God Bless the USA" Bibles and in 2020 when he posed with a Bible immediately after a harsh crackdown on protesters in front of the White House.

"I saw him holding the Bible, and endorsing a Bible -- as if it needed his endorsement," Warnock, who is also a pastor in Atlanta, said in his convention speech, earning a huge cheer.

"It says, 'Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God'," he added. "He should try reading it."

D.Khalil--SF-PST