The Religious Left Fights Back

Opinion Journal's Houses of Worship features an article on the so-called "religious left" battling back against Christian right-wing extemists (like me, I guess).

"If the last election proved anything," notes a recent issue of The Economist, "it was that middle America found an overtly religious party much less weird than an overtly secular one." Religious progressives would agree. Yet despite their feeling comfortable with God talk, they share certain traits that may limit their appeal to other people of faith.
First, they're composed mostly of mainline clergy and church elites who are often culturally out of step with the rank and file. They're leaders with no obvious grass-roots constituency. Second, they treat traditional religion with either suspicion or outright contempt. Believers who raise concerns about complex social matters--such as embryonic cloning or the role of condoms in fighting AIDS--are dismissed as crazed theocrats. Third, religious progressives are often allied with left-wing partisans such as financier George Soros, MoveOn.org and Pax Christi, all of which loathe the Christian Right as much as radical Islam.

The religious left wants to use the teachings of Christ and Old Testament scriptures to call us to increase the welfare state. Rather than caring for the poor themselves, they aim for the government (ie, the Feds forcing taxpayers to increase their charitable giving through it--the ultmate umbrella organization). Meanwhile, the religious right fights to shring the size of government and take care of charitable donations on their own, thank you very much.

How the religious left somehow finds scriptural backing for abortion and stem-cell research is curious to me. Can you please point me to the passage that makes it ok to kill unborn children?