Joe,

If you want to reduce abortions, legalize 'em. Under Clinton, where they were legal, there were fewer of 'em then under Bush.
(Don't tell me any woman loves to have an abortion.)

Legalize drugs, legalize booze, but not cigs because they affect others through side-stream smoke. But if people choose to smoke and others don't have to inhale it, then legalize that too.
But if the use of any of these substances hurts or kills others,
then the person who uses them must accept full responsibility such as driving while stoned or DUIs or giving others cancer. Then it becomes a criminal act.

Legalize sexual preference as long as it doesn't interfere with the rights of others and is not predatory. (Gay marriages don't hurt marriage or any other person.)

Legalize any religion that doesn't do others harm. (The religious left, right or moderate). Legalize the right to worship green men on the moon. Now evangelism may hurt others. It interferes with civil rights whether left or right or moderate. It condemns others and this is an act of agression.

Legalize Free Will and Choice because this is a true Christian and American value.

Legalize aethism, agnosticism, free-thinking, any thinking as long as no one gets hurt. (Don't blame violence on Dr. King or Ghandi since they didn't hurt anyone. It's the people who tried to suppress 'em...hurt 'em.)

Legalize seditious thought and dissent because this is the American Way.

Respect the Separation of Church and State because this is in our Constitution and was put there by enlightened Founding Fathers.

Legalize the right to dissent through peaceful demonstrations.
(Not violent ones such as used at abortion clinics).

But Jerry,

there are those of us on the Left who do not want to see religion being used as a political tool. This may be where Doctor King went wrong and lost his base as much as I admire what he did. Why can't non-Christians be non-violent and offer dissent?

If there is any "Left" that makes sense, it will have to be a coalition of all kinds of systems of beliefs or non-beliefs.
A moral imperative shouldn't have to be affixed to a religious point of view.

The term "Left" has to be suspect these days.
It used to be that "Liberals" were not necessarilly "Left" as in socialists or communists. IE: FDR was not a socialist or communist but was definitely a Liberal president.

The premise of a Relligious Left is a possible land mine because it doesn't define a specific political or religious point-of-view and excludes those who might agree with some of the principles of a Wallis or Campolo but not eat the whole enchilada.

It would be great if we could drop the labels and just talk about issues that are important to us and impart our point-of-view without recriminations. Then maybe we could start to have a true democracy.

Frank