...if I had it all to do over again, I'd have asked for a separate workshop to bring things down to brass tacks.

Our experience certainly bears this out. This may be a model for how to structure conference sessions as two part experiences, at least for some topics.

In the "what to do about it" session, I talked about the reasons that we started Talk to Action in the first place:

Our political culture discourages gaining any kind of comprehensive knowledge about the religious right -- even though it is arguably one of the most successful political and social movements in American history. Our political parties, our universities, our political interest groups and our mainstream religious institutions have changed little in response. And there have been serious political consquences that have resulted from this inertia. As a practical matter then, few spaces exist in our lives where a spirit of learning about and grappling with the religious right in a more serious way. We created Talk to Action in an effort to begin to try to address that gap. It is not nearly enough, but we are at least able to model what serious efforts at gaining knowledge and discussing it looks like.

As Chip Berlet and I both highlighted in our talks, the long standing practice of demonization and name calling is a poor substitute for actual knowledge and appropriate vocabularies to encourage thoughtful political strategizing. Labels such as "extremists" mean little to nothing, and often discourage us from learning and using descriptive terms that allows us to classify and discuss segments of the religious right more meaningfully.

That's why as we seek to deepen our knowledge and widen the community of knowledgeable people, we also seek to use terms that are fair and generally understood about the religious right, and its many subsidiary parts and related movements and institutions. These are necessary prerequisites to having discussions in which we understand one another and therefore to making effective political strategy.

I pointed out that the religious right will be a significant factor for the rest of the lives of everyone in the room -- and their children. If we are serious about our values, then it makes sense for us to get a lot more knowledgeable about the religious right, its players, its institutions, its strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, since we are in a time of some significant transition for the religious right, (as the founding generation of religious right leaders passes from the scene) we may be presented with many opportunities. Transitions from the days of larger than life figures like  Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, may not go smoothly. But we will not be able to even see opportunities, let alone gain any advantage if we do not know enough or are unable to sufficiently communicate with each other to adjust political strategy in light of changing circumstances.

I also highlighted that the religious right's focus on electoral politics and expanding their base of participation through effective political organizing. The growth in the percentage of white evangelicals in the GOP did not happen by magic or because several percentage points of people woke-up one day (or over the course of a few years in the 90s) and discovered that they were Republicans and became regular voters. This was a matter of effective political organizing and not merely a matter of "values" or of the cumulative effect of televangelism or the charisma of Ronald Reagan, or even the sum total of these and other parts. Meanwhile, it took about 15 years from the launch of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition for progressive Democrats to recognize that a far more effective grassroots electoral capacity was necessary and achievable. (The early efforts of Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts, and later the Dean campaign, Democracy for America, the development of the progressive "netroots" and the 50 state strategy of DNC chair Howard Dean -- are all notable developments that have begun to significantly transform the way that electoral politics is done, and are exactly the kinds of approaches that we need to begin to answer three decades of electoral development by the religious right that had gone largely unanswered.)

Chip and Susan Thistlethwaite and I, each in our ways, made clear that there is no need to compromise on basic values such as support for reproductive rights, gay and lesbian civil rights, and bedrock American concepts of the right to individual conscience and separation of church and state -- in order to pander to conservative Catholics and evangelicals. Chip correctly pointed out that they are not going to change their views on abortion and homosexuality. We all agreed that many, however, will agree with a more Democratic approach to economic issues, the environment and a more sane and just foreign policy. But to persuade people who disagree on these matters to vote Democratic requires showing respect for them as people, even as we agree to disagree on certain things. This is necessary in any political coalition as Chip has recently written. Learning to be able to do this is a necessary skill and an act of political maturity. It takes some considerable knowledge, wisdom, and effort to be able to see where our interests and values merge and diverge -- while keeping a cool head.

But we are under no obligation to change or modify our views on certain things, in order to find common ground on unrelated matters. Indeed, Chip got the most deeply felt applause in our sessions in Chicago, when speaking as a Christian and as a Democrat he declared (and I am paraphrasing here) that compromising the human and civil rights of our fellow Americans in order to win votes is "immoral."

All of these matters, how we consider the role of religious right in our political culture; how we structure our conversations about it; how we organize effective political responses; and how we stand for our values in the face of the urge by some Democratic leaders to pander to the religious right itself -- are ongoing discussions. But I am delighted that we were able to stake out some very clear ground at the Yearly Kos in Chicago and to inform and further open-up the conversation in the blogosphere and the Democratic Party.