"Democrats open faith-filled convention with prayer"

Cafeteria-style religion at the DNC:

At the first official event Sunday of the Democratic National Convention, a choir belted out a gospel song and was followed by a rabbi reciting a Torah reading about forgiveness and the future.

Helen Prejean, the Catholic nun who wrote "Dead Man Walking," assailed the death penalty and the use of torture.

Young Muslim women in headscarves sat near older African-American women in their finest Sunday hats.

Four years ago, such a scene would have been unthinkable at a Democratic National Convention. In 2004, there was one interfaith lunch at the Democratic gala in Boston.
But that same year, "values voters" helped re-elect President Bush, giving Democrats of faith the opening they needed to make party leaders listen to them.

AP on the "Catholic vote":

Laser helped broker compromise language in the Democrats' abortion platform that acknowledges the need to help women who want to keep their pregnancies. Hunter and liberal evangelical leader Jim Wallis were involved, as were new groups such as Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Despite all the effort, there is little evidence religious votes are shifting. A Pew poll released last week showed the political preferences of religious voters, including highly sought Catholics and white evangelicals, have scarcely budged since 2004.

Catholics are up for grabs, but white evangelicals have become so solidly Republican, Obama has little chance of carving too deeply into the Republican lead, said Allen Hertzke, a University of Oklahoma political scientist.

Consider with the obligatory mound of salt. Maybe even a pillar.