politics and the midterm elections. have the democrats neglected outreach to religious voters. >> they really needed to ramp up their faith outreach, especially in such a difficult time and they haven't done that. and when the catholic archbishop of st. paul and minneapolis urged opposition to gay marriage, was he involving the church in minnesota politi? >> major funding for religion at

ethics newsweekly provided by an indianapolis-based private foundation, interest in community development, education. additional funding by mutual of america designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're you're retirement company. welcome. i'm bob abernathy. it's good to have you with us. with election day around the corner faith groups are urging their members to get out and vote and vote their convictions. religion has played a role in many races leading up to the midterm elections and exploration of that coming up. but first humanitarian and religious aid groups mobilize this week after a string of natural disasters struck indonesia. hundreds were killed and many are missing after an earthquake

and tsunami hit a remote island area in the west of the country. relief workers said the isolated conditions and bad weather made it difficult to reach the victims. many of the same aid groups also helped victims of a volcanic eruption in central indonesia where scores of people were killed. meanwhile in haiti, aid organizations are working to contain the outbreak of cholera amid concer the disease will spread. the vatican is asking iraq not to execute former iraqi prime minister tar east coast assiz. he was sentenced to death for the persecution of shiite political rivals by disasaddam hussein's government. he said canceling the execution would promote peace in iraq. tar east coast assiz is a catholic who once met with pope john paul ii at the vatican.

several seek groups in this country expressed disappointment that president obama will not visit one of their most sacred sites during his upcoming trip to india. some media outlets speculated the president is avoiding a stop at the golden temple because he would have had to cover his head in order to enter and that could have fueled the mistaken view that he's a muslim. he is a christian. the white house denies that's the reason saying the visit simply did not fit ito the president's schedule. one group says it emboldens those who want to divide the country over race and religion. now our special election coverage. two weeks ago kim lawton reported on how the tea party movement is rallying religious conservatives a trend that's expected to help the republicans tuesday. this week kim reports on the democrats and questions that are being raised about whether they

eligious outreach. >> reporter: in southern virginia's fifth district, democratic congressman tom perriello is in a tight race for reelection. on this day the roman catholic candidate is in lynchburg, helping deliver food with meals on wheels. it's part of his volunteer tithing initiative, in which perriello and his campaign staff give 10% of their time to local charities. >> tithing in my faith tradition is about giving 10% of what you have, and the most precious commodity we have on the campaign is our time. it reminds us why we are doing this in the first place, and we always leave a little more inspired and fired up than when we went in, and i think that's an important part of keeping the focus on serving the people and not the political games. >> reporter: perriello has been speaking a lot about his faith on the campaign trail, visiting churches and building relationships with local clergy. it's a religious outreach strategy that helped him narrowly win two years ago. >> it's not just a matter of going to church or being able to quote some bible verses. it's really an authenticity that

i think people look for, of saying is this guy motivated by something other than power. >> reporter: but leading up to these midterm elections, only a few other democratic candidates have embraced that type of broad-based faith outreach, and that's a big shift from just two years ago. david gibson is religion writer at politicsdaily.com. >> the democrats' faith outreach in 2010 hasn't been anything like it was in 2008, and that's doubly bad news because the incumbent, the president in this case, and his party are always going to lose seats in the midterm elections. so they really needed to ramp up their faith outreach, especially in such a difficult time, and they haven't done that. >> reporter: for years, democrats faced what many called a "god gap." large numbers of americans said they thought the republican party was much more friendly wardeligion than the democratic party. then, in 2008, the obama presidential campaign and democratic party structures launched an unprecedented campaign targeting religious groups.

it appeared the god gap might be starting to close. but now observers say it's widening again, and that is hurting the democrats in this election. according to a survey by the public religion research institute, voters across all religious groups are showing less support for democratic candidates than they did in 2008, and those declines are especially significant among white tholics and inline protestants. gibson says there has also been a loss of support within the jewish community. >> 78%, almost 80% of jewish voters backed obama in the 2008 election, but his approval rating is down to about 50% among those same voters. that's a reliably democratic bloc that has really fallen off. >> reporter: insiders say the democratic national committee has been struggling over how to assimilate faith-based outreach into its overall campaign strategy. dnc leade say they have been connecting with churches, especially black churches, and listening to the concerns of clergy.

they've enlisted the support of some high-profile african- american pastors, including civil rights leader rev. joseph lowery. >> in 2008, we changed the guard. this year we must guard the change. >> reporter: some progressive faith-based groups have been trying to rally voters, although they say they don't have the resources they did two years ago. catholics united is urging support for candidates the group believes are advancing justice and the common good. on this night the group organized catholic university students to call catholic swing voters in ohio on behalf of democratic congressman john boccieri. he's been targeted by conservatives after voting in favor of health care reform. >> there's 40 million more americans that have access to health insurance after this bill goes into effect, and that's something that we're proud of, something that our nation should stand by. that's a moral issue, and we're proud of that. so we're out calling voters and defending that vote. >> reporter: some democrats say there's been less faith outreach this election because the focus

has been on the economy and on responding to the anti-big-government rhetoric of the tea party movement. while the tea party has been rallying religious conservatives, many religious moderates and liberals say they are frustrated that democratic candidates by and large have not been framing economic issues in moral terms. >> democrats and folks on the religious left, let's say, progressive believers, say look, progressive believers, say, look, we've got a great social justice message here. this is a faith-based message that should resonate with voters at a ti of economic distress. d yet they feel that the administration and the democratic party have not really been preaching that message and in fact have been running away from it. >> reporter: hoping to influence the debate, the grassroots group catholic democrats released "a catholic pledge to america." national director steve krueger says the pledge urges support for candidates who favor a social safety net to meet the

needs of the nation's most vulnerable, ideas, he says, that resonate with catholic social teaching. >> our focus is on people. our focus is on putting people first. we are concerned about jobs. we are concerned out being smart, about how we get the economy back on track, but in the process of doing that we don't want to leave people behind. >> reporter: i asked krueger to assess the democrats' religious outreach this year. >> a lot of the faith-based outreach efforts have really been in the work of this administration and of democrats in congress. i personally would like to see all elected officials talk more about their faith authentically. with respect to the democratic party, the way i view it is that it's a work in progress. >> reporter: i spoke with several democratic religious activists who are deeply frustrated with how their party has been handling faith-based

outreach this campaign season. they talked with me at length off the record but declined to be interviewed on camera before the election. some in the religious community blame president obama for the lack of democratic outreach. >> well, let's face it. the prident is not just the president, he's head of the party. and if the party is not reflecting those concerns it's because of the president's fault, in my estimation. so put the blame where it belongs, right up at the top. >> reporter: during the presidential campaign, obama spoke frequently about his faith and how that faith connected with his policies. he put together a broad religious coalition that even included some from the evangelical community, which traditionally has voted overwhelmingly republican. at the beginning of his administration, the president appointed advisory council of two dozen diverse religious leaders. but that council's term expired more than six months ago, and a new one has yet to be named. the white house says the

recommendations of the council are being studied and implemented, but critics charge that it's been window dressing merely for political support. many in the faith community are also disappointed that the president hasn't been speaking more in religious terms or highlighting the moral dimensions of his policies and meeting with faith leaders as frequently as he did on the campaign trail. and when he has done those things, some say it may have been too little too late. >> president obama had the opportunity to construct a new public agenda that included evangelicals, those evangelicals who could agree with his broad agenda of the concern for the environment, the poor, all these different issues. so obama had the opportunity and in so many ways dropped the ball. there is no other way to describe it. >> i think the obama administration and the democrats really took fograntethe faith groups that came out for

them in 2008 and haven't cultivated them in the same way that certainly their opponents have. >> reporter: some democratic leaders say they do recognize the importance of reaching out to faith-based voters. former maryland lieutenant governor kathleen kennedy townsend wrote a book about what she sees as the appropriate ways to mix politics and relelion. >> i think galvanizing, in particular, religious voters is very important now. you speak in a language that they undetandand you underscore those issues that they particularly-or we, i call myself one-care about. >> reporter: but if many democrats are still figuring out exactly how to do that, gibson sees a potentially complicated religious scenario for the 2012 elections. >> i think the religious right is going to be energized, reenergized, even resuscitated by the election in november if the republicans come in with the force that's expected, and i

think that's going to be a wake-ucall for the democratic party, for the obam administration, and for believers on the liberal side of the spectrum, the so-called religious left. >> reporter: and in the meantime, many party faithful say they fear democrats have squandered an opportunity to energize some key voters in a year when they need every vote they can get. >> kim, did democratic officials agree that they've done very little in the way of outreach this year? >> reporter: well, they are not saying very much about what they think about their outreach. we approached several elected officials and democratic party leaders to get them to talk about this, and they did not want to go on camera talking about it, with the exception of representative perriello, who was in my story, who only wanted to talk about what he was doing and not what the party as a whole is doing. >> why do you think they haven't done more? >> reporter: well, that's the question everybody's asking, and i am not sure that anybody has any good answers right now. i am hearing that there's going

to be a big post-mortem after the election to look at this. the dnc is doing outreach among black churches and has been trying to rally african-american voters, including within the black churches. that's a very reliable democratic base, and so they figure if they can get those people out to the polls that will help. that's been part of their traditional strategy, but they've been doing less with some of these other groups, which is why the grassroots groups are trying to step in, but it's not coming from the party itself. >> and what about the president? >> reporter: well, some people have said to me that, indeed, part of the reason is that the people who had a more broad-based faith-based outreach are now at the white house or working inhe administration and not on campaigns. but there has been some activity within the white house. i have heard a lot of concern that much of it has been very low-profile. for example, i know there's going to be a meeting planned at the whitititustween the

president and some ecumenical christian leaders, mainline protestant leaders, ostensibly to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ecumenical christian movement. it's to happen the day before the elections. but they're not letting any media in, and they're not making a big deal about it. >> d what about theea party? what do they say openly about their relationship with religious conservatives? >> reporter: well, on the surface the tea party is a very secular movement. they don't talk about religion very much, if at all. sometimes they'll have prayer services before a tea party rally that are optional, not part of the main event. but when you look underneath it, there is a lot of support from religious conservatives, and in fact some people say that that may be as much as half. one poll showed that half of americans who consider themselves part of the tea party movement are religis conservative >> i've been interested in the polling data that shows that maybe it's not so much that people are anti-democrat or anti-republican.

's they're anti-anybody in power, and it's not so much a partisan thing as the anger at people in washington not getting more done, not being able to work together. >> reporter: well, that's been a major theme through this election, of course, and the democrats are on the firing line, because they are the ones in the places of power right now. i think that's why some of the democratic activists are saying in that kind of environment we need all the votes we can get and that's why they're a little disappointed that the party hasn't seemed to be focusing on their communities to get out the vote as much. >> good, kim. we'll see you next week afterwards. the question of church involvement in politics has been prominent in minnesota this season. whether there should be a state constitutional amendment about gay marriage is not a campaign issue, it's not on the ballot, but the catholi archbish of st. paul and minneapolis chose to send a message opposing gay

marriage to every catholic family in the state pro voebing some strong reactions. >> reporter: marriage is reaffirmed each time a man and woman choose to make each other husband and wife. >> reporter: less than a month before upcoming statewide elections, minnesota's catholic bishops, spearheaded by john nienstedt of minneapolis-st paul sent this dvd to every catholic household in the state, $400,000 in all, at a cost of $1 million, funded by an anonymous donation. >> at best, so-called "same-sex marriage" is an untested social experiment, and at worst, it poses a dangerous risk with potentially far-reaching consequences. >> critics of archbishop nienstedt take issue with many of his assertions in the dvd, but they also question the timing of the dvd campaign, coming as it does just prior to the elections. >> he is playing partisan politics from a tax-exempt pulpit. that is what he is doing. he skirts that issue because he

doesn't name a specific candidate, but he is in fact lobbying. this is the time for the election. we all know that. he knows that. i think that's very inappropriate, and he's manipulating his flock in doing that. >> of the three major party candidates for governor, only one- republican tom emmer-supports an amendment to the state constitution that nienstedt wants that would define marriage as between a man and a woman. while insisting that he isn't endorsing emmer, the archbishop/ made his preference clear. endorsing emmer, the archbishop/ man and one woman. and to protect this truth, it is time in minnesota to let the people speak. >> reporter: would it have been more prudent or less controversial to have a longer conversation about this without the election looming to complicate matters? >> i don't know that we can answer that question. >> reporter: father david mccauley of the minnesota catholic conference, which

represents the bishops' group, says that as religious leaders they have a responsibility to speak out on timely moral issues of the day. >> 31 states have addressed the topic of gay marriage, and there can be no denial that it has become very much a topic of conversation in both national and state conversation, and i can see why they would want to make catholic people aware of catholic teaching at this time and culture. >> reporter: so far some 2500 people turned their dvds in to a group that brought them back to the bishop. another 1,000 were returned to sender directly in the mil and hundreds we snt to local artist creating a sculpture with them. among the most vigorous opponents are michael bayly with a group representing cathohocs from sexual minorities and mary lynn murphy with a group called catholics rainbow parents. >> in those dvds he says straight out that our children are second-class citizens, the

parents of gay children, our kids are second-class citizens and don't deserve the rights that other american have. >> some would say that, oh, if they were speaking out on immigration reform or civil rights wouldn't you think that that would be an appropriate thing for them to do, and of course i would. but the difference i see is that in all of those cases, the efforts to speak out, the end results is to broaden the circle, to expand the circle, and to include others in, whereas in this case, with the anti-gay marriage campaign, they're seeking to exclude a huge part of the population, not just catholics. >> the church's teaching on marriage is not a condemnation of homosexual persons as human beings. it is simply a reflection not only of the scriptures, but of the unique, procreative nature of the male-female bond. >> the teachings of the church regarding sexuality are the same

for heterosexual people as they are for gay people. the church has always stated that the genital expression of sexuality is limited to those who are married, who have entered into that solemn covenant with one another to be faithful and to be supportive to each other and are open to share in god's work of creion and that those things are not possible in a gay marriage. >> reporter: nienstedt has long been outspoken on the issue of gay marriage, often battling in public with gay activists like bayly. but bayly says that debate has widened. >> it's no longer the usual suspects who are, you know, talking about this. it's the rank-and-file catholics, and they're doing it, you know, by the hundreds and perhaps by the thousands within this archdiocese. >> reporter: one of those catholics is father michael tegeder, who ministers to a suburban twin cities parish. >> the name of the father, the son a the holy spirit. >> reporter: in a public letter,

he took issue with the archbishop's contention that gay marriage is a threat to traditional marriage. he says the real threat to marriage is poverty. >> the political candidates don't need that kind of issue out there when we're faced with other real significant issues that they can do something about. constitutional amendments are very unrealistic. it's not going to happen. >> reporter: he says the response from his parishioners and others has been overwhelmingly positive, even from some unlikely places. >> they're coming from such hotbeds of radicalism like ramsey, minnesota, mogomery, minnesota, hastings, minnesota. >> reporter: surveys show that catholics are almost evenly divided on gay marriage, although a clear majority now favors civil unions. >> i have a responsibility to my parishioners to speak for their concerns. so often in these cases if i don't say something, i hear from mshioners saying you are the pastor. you are the priest. you are to speak for us. >> reporter: tegeder has not

been reprimanded by the archbishop, but nienstedt turned down tegeder's request that he meet with concerned catholics. >> we have a lot of people who are in same-sex relationships in our communities, our catholic communities, and the dvd campaign was very hurtful to them and to their families and friends and to many other catholics. >> reporter: in an editorial, the minneapolis star-tribune said, "the church's tax-exempt status could be threatened if it directly endorsed candidates. but instead it's endorsing a policy outcome that's entirely consistent with its theology in the same way catholics have campaigned for decadeso outlaw abortion. but even though it's generated controversy, most political analysts say the dvd campaign won't have much impact on the election outcome. most voters seem far more concerned about the economy. for "religion and ethics newsweekly," this is fred de sam lazaro in st. paul.

in bethlehem, renovations are in the works for the curch ofhe nativity. the palestinian government announced it will again repairs on the church's roof, pillars and mo sakes, all of which have been damaged by centuries of weather, wear and tear. this will be the first major renovation for the church since it was built in the fourth century. the site draws millions of tourists each year to what was believed to be the place jesus was born. on our calendar this week, sunday, halloween, is also reformation day for protestant recallinghe time in 1517 when martin luther nailed hto the dor in germany. all saints day, a time to honor all saints and martyrs.

all souls day celebrated tuesday by catholics and protestants. prayers are said for loved ones who have died. also in the week ahead, hindu, the festival of lights, a popular holiday marking the victory of good over evil. that's our program for now. i'm bob abernathy. there's much more on our website. you can comment on all of our stories and share them. audio and video podcasts are also available. you can follow us on facebook and twitter. and now you can watch religion and ethics newsweekly any me, anywhere on smart phones, iphones and ipads. our new mobile web app offers news headlines, story videos, program audio, andour multi-faith calear, too. join us at pbs.org. as we leave you with music of the late johnny cash, who this week was named one of the

newest inductees to the gospel music hall of fame. ♪ ♪