During a late night flipping session last night I came across a Naomi Wolf speech on C-Span. I love C-Span, by the way. Where else can you get 24/7 coverage of public speaking. Anyway, she was giving a keynote at the new Institute for Progressive Christianity in Washington. Wolf is a feminist author and political strategist who advised Clinton on the female vote and tried to help Gore get elected, to no avail. Not really her fault. Anyway, she had a rather good speech about how we need to re-frame the language of religious politics. She suggested by reducing all religions down to their core values (justice, truth telling, etc.) we can frame a debate in politics that can allow for the successful existence of multiple religions in Democracy. It sounds idealistic at first. But once one realizes that it is possible to shift the language of all these debates from religious language to ethical language we could make ground on many issues such as health care, the minimum wage, stem cells and even gay rights. But it is going to take a paradigm shift in the language of the country not the morals of the country. Thus, it should be easy to achieve. Right?
I would like to find a transcript of the speech somewhere and as soon as I do I will be sure to post it.