Howard Dean Wants Evangelicals

Howard Dean wants his party to embrace evangelical voters:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says his party needs to attract evangelical Christian voters.

"We ought to reach out to those folks ... and not be afraid," Dean said at a DNC fundraiser Wednesday night at San Francisco's Palace Hotel, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Dean said nearly 30 percent of evangelical Christians now identify themselves as Democratic voters, up from 20 percent in 2004, thanks to an intense effort by the Democratic Party.

"We went out and advertised on Christian broadcast networks ... because in the evangelical movement, young people are changing America -- and they're changing the evangelical movement.

Dean then shows how little he really knows about churchgoers:

"People don't want to go to church anymore ... and come out feeling bad because they happen to know somebody who's gay," he said, according to the Chronicle. "People want to go to church because they know what they can do about poverty, about Darfur, about the environment."

Really? I thought people went to church because of worship, not because of social activism. I guess I go to the wrong type of churches.