Nuance is bad. Especially when talking about abortion. At least, the Washington Times seems to think so.

The conservative newspaper recently criticized Barack Obama for maintaining a solidly pro-choice voting record while acknowledging the complex moral implications of this issue on the stump.

The offending remarks?

The issue of abortion, I don't think has gone away. People think about it a lot, obviously you do and you feel impassioned. I think that the American people struggle with two principles: There's the principle that a fetus is not just an appendage, it's potential life. I think people recognize that there's a moral element to that. They also believe that women should have some control over their bodies and themselves and there is a privacy element to making those decisions. I don't think people take the issue lightly. A lot of people have arrived in the view that I've arrived at, which is that there is a moral implication to these issues, but that the women involved are in the best position to make that determination. And I don't think they make it lightly. I don't think they make it callously.

The senator was responding to a questioner who asked: Why is there so much outrage over Michael Vick's abuse of dogs when thousands of babies are being aborted each day with very little discussion?

While there will always be a certain segment of the population (on both the left and the right) who will reject nuance and compromise, those figures are increasingly at the fringes of the debate. In fact, recent trends show that the American people are deeply ambivalent about abortion. On one hand, they consistently tell pollsters they personally uncomfortable with abortion; on the other hand, few want to see a total ban on the procedure.

This demonstrates what many in politics, especially progressive faith and politics, already know: abortion is a deeply complicated moral issue that does not lend itself easily to legislative solutions. Despite what the some conservative religious leaders would have us believe, the "culture war" approach has failed and Americans are looking for new ways to frame this issue and for creative, common ground solutions. Leaders, both political and religious, who fail to speak to these concerns do so at their own peril.

ps--for an idea of some creative common ground solutions might look like, check out the FPL/Third Way report identifying consensus on social issues between progressives and Evangelicals.