By Ed Stoddard
DALLAS (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidatesBarack Obama and Hillary Clinton will court the "faith vote" ata forum this weekend, seeking support from a sizableconstituency with a major influence on U.S. politics.
Organizers say the nationally televised forum on Sundaynight at Messiah College near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, willallow the candidates to discuss how their religious faithinforms their positions on issues such as global poverty, AIDS,climate change and abortion.
Religion plays a much bigger role in U.S. politics thanelsewhere in the developed world, reflecting Americans'comparatively high rates of belief and church attendance.
"It would be unlikely anywhere else to find presidentialcandidates who would feel compelled to answer questions fromreligious groups," said Matthew Wilson, a political scientistat Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
"In many European societies, many politicians are reluctantto discuss their faith convictions publicly but here we expectthem to do so."
The forum will be closely watched as it comes just over aweek before Pennsylvania's crucial Democratic primary electionthat the Obama camp hopes could clinch the hard-fought contestto pick the party's candidate to run in November's presidentialelection.
It is also aimed at a national audience.
Conspicuous in his absence will be the Republicanpresidential candidate, John McCain, whose party has been moreclosely linked with the "faith vote" -- especially among theevangelical Protestants who account for 1 in 4 U.S. adults.
McCain declined an invitation to the forum, which wasorganized by Faith in Public Life, a non-partisan resourcecentre, and is expected to draw religious activists from acrossthe political spectrum and a range of Christian backgrounds aswell as Jewish and Islamic leaders.
"I frankly did not have the scheduling time to go there,"McCain told reporters in Dallas. "I respect that forum and manyother forums but I could show you a stack of requests to go todifferent forums around the country and I just simply can'tmeet all of those."
The evangelical movement has been broadening its agendabeyond "hot-button" issues such as opposition to abortion andgay marriage that helped propel President George W. Bush to theWhite House by getting conservative Christian Republicans tothe polls.
The forum's topics reflect this change and some see amissed opportunity for McCain to address liberal evangelicals.Conservative Christians regard McCain with suspicion on manygrounds, including his past support for stem cell research.
Centrist evangelical activists such as David Gushee, atheology professor at Mercer University in Atlanta, have spokenwell of McCain because he has combined a staunch opposition toabortion with concern for climate change and an unflinchingcondemnation of torture in the U.S. fight against militants.
"This is what is so fascinating about his no-show. He isthe one apparently who is least comfortable talking aboutissues of faith and how his faith might intersect with hispublic vision and this would give him a chance to do so," saidGushee, who will attend the event.
Obama and Clinton have both been more open talking abouttheir faith in public.
DEMOCRATS AS CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS
All three presidential candidates belong to Protestantdenominations -- vital credentials in a country where manyexpect their political leaders to have a religious andpreferably Christian affiliation.
McCain was raised in the Episcopal Church but now attends aBaptist church, while Obama is with the United Church of Christand Clinton is a Methodist.
Obama is almost sure to face renewed scrutiny at the forumover controversial sermons made by his pastor Jeremiah Wrightin which he branded the United States as racist and said theSeptember 11 attacks in 2001 were payback for its foreignpolicy.
Obama has largely weathered the storm, thanks partly to awidely lauded speech in which he distanced himself fromWright's comments. But they still roil in the background.
Evangelical leaders say they are looking for differentthings from each party.
"We want to determine the Republicans' interest inaddressing the needs of the vulnerable," said Joel Hunter, aninfluential Florida mega-pastor who supported Mike Huckabeewhen the Baptist preacher and former Arkansas governor made hispopulist but failed bid for the Republican nomination.
"We also want to gauge the Democrats' interest in communityand faith-based solutions and not just handing it all off tothe government," said Hunter, who will also be at the event.
Exit polls in some states have turned up sizable and, tosome, surprising numbers of evangelical Democrats. Exit pollsfrom Ohio's primary in early March suggested that 43 percent ofwhite evangelical voters voted Democratic.
In 2004, Bush won about 78 percent of this vote nationwide.
The issues to be raised on Sunday are also important toRoman Catholics, a large group in Pennsylvania, many of whomhave been influenced by the Vatican's social teachings.
According to some exit polls in Pennsylvania's closelycontested presidential race in 2004, Democratic Sen. John Kerrynarrowly won among Catholics. But for the more conservativefollowers of the faith, Democratic candidates remain a toughsell because of their support for abortion rights.
"The first thing I look at is whether they are pro-life ornot, so there is not a lot of choice on the Democratic side,"said Carolyn Astsalk, a Catholic who lives near Harrisburg.
(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Dallas)
(Editing by John O'Callaghan)
