Mark Shields on Democratic-party (lack of) openmindedness to pro-life Democrats:

Seventeen Democratic House members wrote to party chairman Terry McAuliffe asking him only “to add a link to the Democrats for Life of America on the Democratic National Committee website.”
The Democratic National Committee has, by actual count, 261 links on its Web site, including ones to such longtime party stalwarts as Easter Seals, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the U.S. Forest Service and the Oneida Indian Organization.
As the pro-life Democratic congressmen wrote in their letter, the DNC’s refusal to add a link meant that “members of the Democratic Party who are opposed to abortion and capital punishment are being denied their right to be heard ….”
.McAuliffe wrote to one of the 17, Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Mississippi, on June 24, stating, “I do not think it would be appropriate to use official party resources such as the DNC website on behalf of organizations whose purpose is to reverse the current platform and/or to enact legislation that contradicts that platform.”
“Official party resources?” Democrats for Life is not asking for a desk and a phone at party headquarters or even access to the postage meter. All it asks from the Democratic Party (which views “diversity as a source of strength”) is to be the 262nd link on its Web site. By the DNC’s logic, do the American Association of University Women, The Jerusalem Post and the American Legion — all of which have their own DNC links — embrace and endorse every plank in the Democratic platform?
OK. So the Democratic Party is not, as it bills itself, broadminded and tolerant and welcoming of diverse views. But that is far from all. In its uncritical endorsement of unrestricted abortion rights, the Democratic Party brass is out of touch with America.

Here’s the full Shields column (warning: just bear with him past the opening graph).