Posted on 08/04/2011 8:36:59 AM PDT by NYer
Then stop making blanket statements like "Catholics vote Democrat". That's personally offensive to someone like me, who has never, not even once -- I'm 50 years old -- voted for a D Presidential candidate, and only on exceedingly rare occasions for a D in any other office. (I live in the South; sometimes Southern Democrats on the local level are more conservative than the Republicans.)
"The Catholic vote trends Democrat more than it should" is a statement I'll agree with you on. As long as the D party remains anti-life and anti-family, the solution to that is to make more Catholics into better Catholics who take their religion with them into the voting booth.
The trend in both America and in the Catholic church has been toward pro-life. The pro-life movement is winning this argument slowly but steadily.
Also, you must remember that the Democratic Party turned pro-abortion in fairly recent memory. It was only after it was hijacked by the anti-war crowd of John Kerry’s ilk that the Dem Party went south on abortion. I believe I read something recently about John Kennedy being solidly anti-abortion.
That is one reason so many democrats have only slowly come to realize it’s not the same pro-worker party of their grandparents.
We are all politically savvy, we know that when we talk about Catholics being a democrat constituency that we don’t mean each individual Catholic, the same goes for other generalities about voting blocks, no one should have to explain that we are pointing out how the majority of that block votes, not each individual.
Do you get upset when people mention the “Hispanic vote”, even though you know that Protestant Hispanics vote about 50/50 republican? In that case the distinction needs to be made, because in that case there is a clear difference between the Catholic and Protestant Hispanic that needs to be studied for the clues of how we can win the Catholic voters, we need to find the key that the republican party has never been able to find with the Catholic vote.
As a Catholic,I am not comfortable with the division of Catholics according to “white”, “Hispanic” and/or any other specified “ethnic” group, whether by voting habits or anything else..
I live in a pretty densely populated area. My residence is in a valley/foothill part of my county, and in this area alone we have 5 (Roman)Catholic parishes, two Chaldean Rite parishes(Iraqi Catholics) and 1 Maronite Catholic parish (Lebanese). As a larger community, we don’t classify ourselves according to white, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, etc-—we all consider ourselves...Catholic. We often visit each others churches. We are united in belief. We are outstandingly pro-life—all parishes are committed to serious pro-life endeavors, and by this I don’t mean just the voting booth, but hands-on work such as pregnancy counseling centers, helping women materially and emotionally through pregnancies that Planned Parenthood would gladly be paid to terminate.
My parish ministers to people from varied cultural communities—Filipino, Hispanic, Sudanese, Iraqi/Lebanon, and in the mid-1970’s we took under our care a large group of “boat people” who had managed to escape Vietnam. However, we don’t separate ourselves according to color or culture.
We who take our Faith seriously and are there consistently to worship, to put our faith to the test in our daily lives and to minister to each other are NOT “liberal”.
We can’t speak for those who are not consistent in their worship and daily life.
As Catholics, we don’t separate our parishioners according to color or race. We belong to each other in Jesus Christ.
So—no matter how polling “data” may wish to separate us in such a way, in real time/real life, the actuality of how we live and act as American citizens is the true barometer of us as Catholics.
Like you said, it was the polling firm that provided the separate data on different demographics within the Catholic Church.
But, like Jesus said, “When they see your unity, then they’ll know I was sent by my Father.”
Jesus agrees with you. I’d call that pretty good company.
Quite right on all those points. Another issue is the phenomenon of “cultural Catholics.” They self-identify as Catholics in polls, and somewhat skew the results. And, yes, the Democrat party didn’t used to be be the liberal party. It became that over the years starting really with Woodrow Wilson.
That’s not to say there aren’t big challenges in the Catholic Church with significant numbers of people voting for liberals; there is. But, it’s gradually changing. The sixties did a lot of damage throughout society, and the Catholic Church was no exception.
"White" Catholics have slowly been voting a little more Republican (52% voted rep in 2008, while 48% of Hispanic Protestants voted rep. In 2004, white Catholics and Hispanic Protestants both supported Bush by 56%), but Catholic immigration will more than make up for that. I think that we are in a period of the best that it is going to get for the Catholic vote, unless we come up with some dramatic strategy to make Catholic Hispanics conservative.
Obama got 54% of the Catholic vote, that isn't due to Catholics not knowing what they are voting for, they do know and Republicans at this point do not look likely to be winning more of their votes as time passes. In twenty years it will be worse, not better. We need some earth shattering way to change that future, and conservative Catholics need to figure something out, putting their heads in the sand and fighting to keep the truth from being known is not a winning strategy.
Look at that California, 2004 vote breakdown in post 41, we don't want all of America becoming like California.
Actually, the only three elections that we know for sure that the Catholic vote went republican, is since the 1960s, 1972 being the first one.
Thank you so much, xzins.
And thanks so much for all of your great postings.
You do realize the KKK strung up Catholics, So how can you associate the KKK to Catholics? See southern history.
I believe anyone with open eyes can see the stance the church has on Abortion and Life in general, for it is well documented. If a Catholic is for abortion they are not standing with the church, see Nancy Pelosi. Most Catholics who have a good understanding of their faith say Nancy should be refused communion for her acts. (now if the priest would step up and show some fortitude) So what makes you think a true Catholic stands for abortion?
“... unless we come up with some dramatic strategy to make Catholic Hispanics conservative.”
That bigotry just keeps pouring out. Sad.
I didn’t associate anyone, I said they both were democrats, which they were.
Would you explain how you find bigotry in this statement?
“... unless we come up with some dramatic strategy to make Catholic Hispanics conservative.”
What conservative, pro-lifer would disagree with it, do you?
Your spamming of Catholic threads with anti-Catholic and anti-hispanic garbage has been noted often. That you now just make snarky comments doesn’t hide the stench. You need to get help.
You really do only make personal attacks don’t you.
If you like the way that Hispanic Catholics vote, just say it out loud, be proud, show your support for that vote.
Yawn. Your odd behavior and weird spamming of Catholic threads is really sad. You need help.
Odd behavior is someone on a conservative site that likes the way that Catholic Hispanics vote.
Get help. Your anti-catholic, anti-hispanic spamming is getting very old. Bigotry is not a conservative value.
**we don’t want all of America becoming like California.**
To me this is a strange statement.
Catholics are against:
abortion,
contraception,
same-sex marriage,
embryonic stem cell research,
euthanasia,
and for the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
What is your beef with the Catholic Church, please, really, down deep?
See post 41. Making things up is called lying.
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