You'd think they forgot the TV cameras were on

kw: politics, religion, current events

I hardly saw any of the Democratic Convention, but I did catch the odd "Booing God" moment. Here is how it was reported by Josh Lederman and Julie Pace of the Associated Press, as reported on Yahoo News:

Needled by Mitt Romney and other Republicans, Democrats hurriedly rewrote their convention platform Wednesday to add a mention of God and declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel after President Barack Obama intervened to order the changes.

The embarrassing reversal was compounded by chaos and uncertainty on the convention floor. Three times Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the convention chairman, called for a voice vote on the changes and each time the yes and no votes seemed to balance each other out. On the third attempt, Villaraigosa ruled the amendments were approved — triggering boos from many in the audience.

I give credit to the President for requesting the changes, even though it has the flavor of too little, too late. Dear party leaders: when you detect you are in the hole, at least stop digging!

Commentators favorable to the Democrats have been scrambling ever since, stating that the ones who'd voted No were booing Mayor Villaraigosa, not God or Jerusalem. It doesn't matter. They were against the changes, some perhaps for good reason, and some for no good reason.

It is well known that militant atheists are a vocal constituency of the Democratic party. They are tentatively supported by a larger, less vocal number who believe religion has no place in politics. I tend to sympathize with this latter bunch, though I disagree. It is also well known that a constituency of anti-Zionists (some of them Jews) has also found a home among the Democrats. Some of these, probably a minority (and certainly none of the Jews), are also anti-semitic, though they've learned to keep that rather quiet. It appears that it was largely due to these folks' influence that administration officials recently met with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Whether a party platform mentions reliance on God, doesn't concern me much. It does concern me that the status of Jerusalem was initially left out, and had to be reinstated by Presidential request.