Faith in Democrats? At DNC, some find higher calling and others see sin

CHICAGO (CN) — The Democratic Convention has come and gone, concluding a week of councils, caucuses, protests and pageantry.

Throughout the convention Democrats made a concerted effort to reclaim patriotic fervor from Republicans — and in America patriotism requires a sign-off from religion.

The party and allied groups hosted a number of events catering to different faiths over the course of the week, hoping to show that the Harris-Walz ticket was the right one for the faithful.

"From the American 'E Pluribus Unum' to the Catholic notion of inclusivity... to the notion of community as a — and here I'm going to turn to the Spanish — a 'nosotros' ... which means literally a community of 'we others,' a necessary otherness, difference, in order to preserve that community, I think that is what constitutes the richness of our faith," said Miguel Diaz, a religious scholar and formerly the Obama administration's ambassador to the Vatican, at a Catholic voter outreach program on Wednesday.

Chicago is a heavily Catholic city, accounting for about a third of adults in the metro area according to Pew Research. The Church has traditionally stood against abortion, while Democrats have made abortion and reproductive healthcare access a cornerstone issue for this election cycle.

Diaz and other speakers' message to voters at the Wednesday program — hosted by the liberal electoral group Catholics Vote Common Good — was that despite disagreements over abortion or other issues, voting Democrat isn't a sin.

"I'll say this: I'm informed by my faith," Democratic Pennsylvania representative Madeleine Dean said at the event, adding, "those tenets that are the common good meet my work."

Catholics Vote Common Good Steering Committeewoman Denise Murphy McGraw drove the point home by calling Dean a "Pope Francis legislator," in reference to the current pope, who is seen as more progressive than the two prior popes — Benedict XVI and John Paul II. The group stood in contrast to the Christian right, which has broadly thrown in behind Trump.

Evangelists from that Christian right attended many of the Palestine solidarity protests outside convention spaces over the week, hoping to appeal to protesters disillusioned with the Democrats and DNC. Some handed out comic book pamphlets warning eternal damnation if the protesters did not accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior.

Democrats also courted Muslim and Jewish voters. Rabbi Sharon Brous and Imam Dr. Talib Shareef delivered the invocation on the convention's second night. Their combined remarks projected a message of multifaith unity amid the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war.

“Help us write America’s redemption story … some say that this story is impossible, but we know that the God of this world is the god of the impossible,” Brous prayed on Tuesday.

Jewish and Muslim individuals expressed a broad range of reactions to the Democrats in and outside the convention space, many of them related to the party's stance on Israel.

J-Street President and Times of Israel contributor Jeremy Ben-Ami, for example, publicly praised Vice President Kamala Harris' speech on Thursday for both committing to Israel militarily and to the self-determination of Palestinians.

"Kamala Harris’ remarks on Israel/Palestine were spot on. A clear commitment to Israel’s security, to ending the war and securing a hostage release, and to dignity, security and self determination for the Palestinian people," Ben-Ami said. "Her approach speaks for the majority of all Americans."

However, several Jewish people Courthouse News heard from expressed the opposite reaction, seeing the Democrats' positions as not in line with Jewish values or safety.

"I would say with a heartfelt thanks they have good intentions to help the Jewish people," Nathum, a Jewish man who traveled to Chicago from Indiana for the week's events, said of the Democrats. "But it's misguided good intentions. If they want to help the Jewish people, it would be to help stop the colonization of the state of the Zionists, because that is the root cause of the conflict."

June Rose, an uncommitted delegate from Rhode Island, said Thursday that the Democrats only represented Jewish values of freedom and justice "sometimes."

"I stand up here as a proud Jew who has the radical belief that not one child has to die to keep me safe," June told press Thursday, referencing the rising toll of children killed by Israeli military actions in Gaza.

Muslim and Palestinian-American Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romman — who hoped to speak on the DNC stage but was denied the opportunity — also told Courthouse News she was disappointed by how the party had treated some of its Muslim and Palestinian constituencies. She expressed concern that Harris ran the risk of losing in November if her campaign did not work to bring them into the Democrats' big tent.

"I think some people have done the math and decided that there is not enough Palestinians to matter in this country. But the thing that everyone seems to be missing is that our coalition is not just Palestinians and it's not just Muslims," Romman said in an interview.

"And there are people we need to not just vote for her but be enthusiastic about voting for her to bring other people along. Because our margins are so thin," she added.

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