Just before Spring Break, a friend of mine in Portland, Oregon wrote an essay on how religion in politics has failed to resonate morally with Americans. My friend suggests it’s time for secular America to take morality back from the religious right.

I say it’s time for the secular left to realize it actually has a lot in common with religious ideals. A good example was during Spring Break: I traveled on a service trip with the Newman Catholic Student Center to New Orleans. The secular government has done little to help the city return to its glory days.

Instead, religious groups have done the most rebuilding. In the name of “love thy neighbor,” sacrifice and charity, small groups have grown into large groups. New Orleans’ Catholic Charities organization hosted 10,000 volunteers over Spring Break this year, all working for no pay. Smaller leftist secular volunteer groups have begun similar operations.

Secular politicians have done the opposite, promising much and delivering little. This is why it’s interesting to hear someone denounce religion as adverse to morality, because the idea of helping others through sacrifice is foreign to the American consumerist culture – encompassing both the left and the right.

It’s only through following the prescriptions of religion that groups from religious backgrounds and the secular left were able to join together for the sake of the community, and realize they have much in common after all.

Why is this so hard to accept? Issues like gay marriage and abortion are so difficult to conclude that they become hot-button election issues, but never reach finality within the legislative process. Instead, voters and the mass media ignore real issues that matter now, such as healing drug-filled communities and funding education.

Policies cannot stop people from killing unborn babies or committing to same-sex partners. But policies can create programs to keep kids off the streets, create jobs for poor people and give kids with no opportunity a real chance to succeed.

These issues are the values at the forefront of both the secular left and the religious right, but the values of our society are muddled by stereotypes between secularism and fundamentalism. Society does not fit neatly into these two categories, but people from each camp often place the each other into these roles. For example, many secularists believe all religious voters chose Bush because of his faith, but this is simply not true – nor is it a healthy way to choose a president.

In fact, an educated religious voter would realize that Bush does not subscribe to true religious values when it comes to policy on Hurricane Katrina or the health of the planet.

These are things the secular left has fought for, but whether it’s keeping God’s green Earth the way He made it or helping poor people to survive, the secular left’s cause and religious theology are one and the same; government policy ignores both camps equally.