Nationally, Obama captured 53% of the Catholic vote, a 13-point swing from 2004 and the largest advantage among the group for a Democrat since Bill Clinton. Obama also cut in half the Republican advantage among Protestants. And he made significant gains among regular worship attenders. Voters who attend religious services most frequently are still most likely to cast ballots for Republicans. But Obama won 44% of their votes, a 19-point shift in the category that, after the last presidential contest, inspired pundits to diagnose the existence of a “God gap.” Voters who worship at least once a month preferred Obama 53% to McCain’s 46%.
As in 2006, the least-religious Americans continue to reject the GOP in large numbers. Voters who say they visit houses of worship just a few times a year or not at all made up 44% of the electorate in this election. They gave Obama 59% and 68% of their votes, respectively; both totals represent double-digit increases from four years ago.
And yet despite the inroads Obama made with religious constituencies, there is one voting bloc that remains largely unmoved by Obamamania: white Evangelicals. One-quarter of them voted for Obama on Tuesday ”” despite a warning from conservative columnist Janet Porter that they could be risking their eternal souls by doing so ”” an improvement on John Kerry’s dismal showing in 2004. But against a candidate like McCain, who is famously disliked by many Evangelicals, in a campaign in which Democrats engaged in a record level of outreach to Evangelicals, and at a time when the Evangelical community is expanding its consciousness to focus on traditionally Democratic issues like the environment and poverty, this would have been the year for a real shift of support to take place.
What is sadly clear is that both Catholics and Evangelicals in large numbers now consider quality of life more important than the defense of life itself.
With this election we have lost the possibility, probably for decades, of reversing the Supreme Court’s usurpation of the right of the people to legislate through their representatives. Like Europe, we will be ruled more and more by robed masters and bureaucrats who will decide what’s good for us.
1, it is sadly true that the votes of Christians sustain abortion. It is also true that most Christians live lives that are no different from the surrounding culture.
Katherine correctly brings up the quality of life issue. This is quantifiable.
As a plurality of women who have abortions are poor and single, there might be merit if we examined quality of life as a way of reducing abortions. Poverty is not an easy place to be, and a child is one of the main indicators of poverty.
Iceland, for example, has lots of young women who give birth to their children. But the mothers are supported.
Perhaps if we were willing to ensure that women were supported for having children and took into account their economic costs, we’d reduce abortions substantially.
As it is, talk is cheap. If people really cared about other people’s children, we wouldn’t let them live in poverty.
#1 &2;,
As a McCain supporter and someone who voted against Obama precisely because of his position on Abortion more than any other issue, I think you may be missing the point. Those Christians who voted for Obama (many of whom are pro-life) did so not in the belief that they were supporting abortion, but rather out of a shifting understanding of American politics, i.e. they are no less against abortion, they simply no longer believe that politics will define the issue and they are cynical about the commitment of republican politicians to the pro-life cause and believe they have simply used it as the carrot at the end of the stick in order to get Christians to support other policies they disagree with. In many ways, this is a return to the evangelical belief that it is the changing of individual hearts that matters most. The more Republicans (and Christians within the Republican party) continue to pay lip-service to the pro-life cause while neglecting other causes Christians care about and indeed support policies in other areas that seem antithetical to the gospel message, the more of an exodus there will be. Say what you will about whether they made the right choice (my vote indicated what I believe) but it is a great mistake to impugn the motives of your brothers and sisters, and it will only speed up the break down of the coalition in the Republican party (a shift in which, IMO, is a foregone conclusion anyway).
John, #3, give me the supporting documentation for your “plurality” statement. And how do you propose to support children in poverty? And who do you propose provides that support? And with that support, do you propose doing anything to keep children from being conceived in poverty situations, so that abortion and children born into poverty are not even an issue? Sorry, John, things are much more complicated than just saying support for children in poverty would reduce abortions and then implying that we don’t care because there are children living in poverty.
Jody+, you make a good point about the belief many have that nothing can be done about abortion, so they may as well move on to secondary issues. That I can accept. I fear that many, however, have made their peace with abortion and simply accept it. #3’s idea that abortions would go away if only the nation were more like Sweden is not viable, in my opinion. I did have some hope that more sensible Supreme Court Justices could reverse Roe and return the issue to legislatures, and that hope is now gone. The nation will continue to suffer from the distortion of our system caused when judges legislate, and I think this was a very important issue.
I thank Jody+ for carefully saying “policies … that seem antithetical to the gospel message.” There are very few public policy issues that are gospel issues, abortion being one of them. Sincere Christians can disagree on tax policy, foreign policy, and almost all of the others.
Jody, I simply think you are are wrong. Sometimes a single issue must prevail.
Jody,
You are right. Political platforms are accentuated during campaigns. Politicians pay lip service to the pro -life and pro-choice positions.
Katherine,
I reject the idea that abortion is an issue that Christians must agree on. Christian women have abortions. They go to churches. They believe in Jesus Christ. It is their conscience they have to deal with.
And if it is simply a religious issue, then the government should be kept out of it. It is more important that we advocate that Christians, rather than other Americans, not have abortions, because most of the country won’t sacrifice the life of the mother for a child, and they don’t think it is clear that a fetus should have the same moral status as a person.
Wilkins: “It is their conscience they have to deal with”.
You are wrong here, it is not their conscience they will have to deal with. You should know better.
bl
No Bob,
Wilkins is right. We are judged by God based on our our conscience.
Pax,
Edward
John Wilkins, I reject the idea that Christians standing within the two-thousand-year-old tradition of the Church could possibly favor unlimited abortion on demand. Christians, like their Jewish forefathers in the faith, have always been against the sacrifice of children for the good or for the convenience of adults. As the Hebrews rejected the offering of children to Molech, so Christians have always opposed abortion and infanticide.
Individual Christians do sin, of course, and so as you say there are Christian women who have had abortions. I pray for their repentance and healing. But for a Christian priest to say, “I reject the idea that abortion is an issue that Christians must agree on” is, from the priest, a rejection of God’s love for all humans in favor of the assertion that the most vulnerable can be sacrificed for the convenience of others. This also calls for repentance and healing, even more so because the priest is a shepherd to whose care some of the flock are entrusted.