Posted on 02/03/2005 1:23:26 PM PST by metalmanx2j
John Kerry (news - web sites) managed the best showing in decades for a Democratic presidential candidate among mainline Protestants, but his failure to capture a majority of Roman Catholics — people of his own faith — gave President Bush (news - web sites) an important advantage in last November's election, according to a new survey.
Bush's showing also improved dramatically among Hispanic Protestants, 63 percent of whom supported him in 2004 — a 31 percent gain over 2000.
The postelection phone survey of 2,730 people, conducted by the University of Akron and sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, is a close study of voting behavior and religious faith.
Among non-Hispanic Catholics, Kerry won the support of 69 percent with those with liberal or "modernist" beliefs, while 72 percent of "traditionalists" favored Bush. But importantly, 55 percent of the key swing group of "centrists" picked Bush over Kerry, who was criticized by bishops for his support of abortion rights.
The upshot: A one-time Democratic mainstay, Catholics gave Bush an overall edge of 53 percent to Kerry's 47 percent.
Overall, the mainline Protestant vote split evenly, the poll found, with a Bush decline of 10 percent from 2000 and the best showing for a Democrat since the 1960s; results before then are unclear.
Divisions between religious liberals and conservatives were even more stark than they were four years ago.
"The American religious landscape was strongly polarized in the 2004 presidential vote and more so than in 2000," concluded the team of four political scientists, led by Akron's John C. Green.
The scholars said Bush's religious constituency included Christian traditionalists in all categories, Mormons, Hispanic Protestants and religious centrists among Catholics and mainline Protestants.
Kerry's support came from black Protestants and secular Americans, followed by "modernists" among Catholics and mainline Protestants. Jews and Latino Catholics remained loyally Democratic.
Other questions focused on social issues like abortion and gay marriage, which were thought to be crucial when Nov. 2 exit polls showed "moral values" were more important to voters than Iraq (news - web sites), terrorism or the economy.
The study concluded that "social issues were quite important to the Bush vote, but a secondary factor for the electorate as a whole."
The quadrennial Akron surveys are notable for careful interviewing on respondents' precise religious affiliations and religious views and activities. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
Interesting. Why would mainline Protestants trend toward Kerry over Bush?
Do they fear evangelicals? Are they pro-gay marriage? Pro-abortion?
Maybe Hillary's new appeal to "Christians" is simply an appeal to pro-abortion mainline protestants, not Southern evangelicals at all.
Excellent post.
EagleUSA's unease with religion: "We all have our opinions" is a good illustration of why Kerry did badly among Catholics, - and especially badly among serious Catholics. When asked about his responsibility for pro-abortion legislation, Kerry offered the same rationale: -- I don't believe in killing babies, but others do; since opinions about killing babies are domain of religion, I cannot possibly allow my personal opposition to murder get in the way.
This is an awful breakdown of cognitive ability from any standpoint. But it cost him more among the Catholics, because a Catholic is more likely than a Protestant or an irreligious to distinguish between the voluntary obligations one uniquely has as Catholic (such as gong to confession now and then) and universal truths proclaimed by the Catholic church to all men of integrity (such as not to commit murder). The Protestants have too much invested in the habit of forming 22,000 mutually incompatible doctrines, to immediately recognize that Mr. Kerry, with his separation of religion and politics, is only fit to legislate in a farm of animals.
People of his own faith?!?!?!?! That's funny.
Ostling wants everyone to try the veal and remember he'll be in the Rainbow Room all week and don't forget to get your parking stub validated.
>>>>The Protestants have too much invested in the habit of forming 22,000 mutually incompatible doctrines,
I don't know that this is the problem, so much as the liberalism of a couple denominations/preachers, etc. I think the churches that have been pushing to have gay marriage, etc. are pushing their parisioners into the arms of politicians like kerry. They are quite naturally applying what their preachers taught them. 30 years ago no one was teaching the things that would have encouraged them to vote for an extreme lib like kerry, but today that's precisely where these denominations are going.
>>>>to immediately recognize that Mr. Kerry, with his separation of religion and politics, is only fit to legislate in a farm of animals.
LOL.
The lack of unity and authority leads many -- of course, not all, -- Protestants to the "I believe what I like to believe, and you believe what you like to believe" type of liberalism. It is not a new phenomenon: Luther could not find a common denominator with Zwingli. This is why Kerry's refusal to, seemingly, push his Catholic beliefs onto non-Catholics resonated well with the Protestants.
In other words, a Protestant would typically react to Kerry's blunder as just another statement of him being pro-abortion, combined with an attractive to him lack of doctrinal rigidity. So a Protestant would form his judgement as a balance between his own pro-life conviction, and his distaste for universal proclamations. A Catholic would, of course, also see in it a pro-abortion statement, but a Catholic would also see an utter misunderstanding of the role of religion in civic life, -- a root of more abominations than abortion alone.
Since Protestants have typically voted more in favor of the Reps than Catholics, I would reject this idea.
The reality is that the pastors and ministers of these Churches have been liberalizing their doctrine. As a result some of the congregation no longer know right from wrong. Perhaps you've followed, as example, the allowance of homosexual pastors.
Of the remainder, many have left in favor of churches that adhere strictly to scripture. They've blended into the evangelical movement, non denominational churches, some into the Catholic Chruch etc... The reason Catholics increased is the same reason Protestants decreased. Their Preists took an active role. Only in the case of catholics, the Priests have begun to speak out against the liberal doctrines coming from those within. It is the same with Jews. The Orthodox among them have stayed true to doctrine and are stregthening their numbers. There was an increase in the Jewish vote and we can attribute, I believe, directly to the attention paid to being true to their faith.
President Bush: Shares Our Catholic Values
President Bush and John Kerry: On the Issues Important to Catholics
"Seismic" Catholic Shift to Bush [Insight ]
Analyst cites abortion stance as some Catholic voters shift to Bush
Poll: Catholics Trending Towards Bush
Kerry Losing Ground Among White Catholics
Voting Our Conscience, Not Our Religion [Catholic Prof Says "Vote Kerry"]
Vatican: Kerry guilty of heresy; incurrs automatic excommunication
Should a Catholic Vote for Bush or Kerry?
Why is Bush getting the bishop's blessing?
Ambassador Ray Flynn in Cleveland 10/16/2004- "Vote 2004: The Catholic Factor"
John Kerry Flip-Flops on When to Use His Catholic Belief on Politics
Abortion is Turning Democrats Off to Kerry
Planned Parenthood Unveils TV Ads Backing John Kerry on Abortion
The army of God marching for Bush
The Catholics for Bush website is now live!
(Clinton Apointee Raymond)Flynn: Catholics must vote for culture of life
Priest: It's a sin to vote pro-choice
Some attempts to sabotage Catholic voters
Kerry Scolds Vatican Over Gay Marriage
Monsignor Jude O'Doherty and President Bush
Catholic bishops should beware of Kerry's 'respect'
_____________________________________________________________________
PRESIDENT BUSH WON CATHOLIC VOTE
Blame the Republicans? No, This Time It's the Christians
Faith Factor Proves Key in U.S. Elections
Election Reinforces U.S. Religious Divide
People of Faith Deliver the Election
Evangelicals Say They Led Charge For the GOP [GOTV effort = 79% Evangelical, 52% Catholic to Bush]
I don't know which idea you are rejecting. My comment was strictly to the Kerry's statement during one of the debates, where he said that he would not impose his Catholic beliefs on anyone. This statement, idiotic as it is, must have a superficial appeal to the Protestants.
Please see my #25 where I tried to clarify this.
yikes!!! Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson!
BTW, here's a cool photo, can you make it bigger? I can't read it...
http://www.ufomind.com/area51/articles/1994/nyt_940624/cover.jpg
sorry, I can't seem to make it any clearer... I boosted the resolution up to 300 and ran the sharpen filter a few times... no dice, sorry.
Conservative pro-life Christian voters made monumental contributions to GWB's 2004 vote totals. Pres Bush won with 63 Million Votes (13 million more than 2000).
The map, though impressive, conveys the misleading impression that blue state Catholics voted for Kerry (a CINO).
According to EWTN "The World Over Live" analysts, with the exception of VA, where Catholics spit 70/30 in favor of Bush, the majority of Catholic voters split 55/45 for Bush.....a whopping number of votes since Catholics number about 52 million Americans.
According to CNN exit polls, Bush voters included 38% of union members, 40% of those with union members in their households, 42% of those earning $15,000-$30,000, 44% of those who earn under $50,000 and 44% of Latinos, 45% of youth (aged 18-29), 13% of liberals—even 11% of Democrats voted for Bush.
If you look closely, the map appears to place the insignificant "Other Voters" in the ocean.....that's accurate, because "Other Voters--RINO Republicans" were on cruise ships.
(MAP UPDATE Bush won Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico later.)
THIS is an assumption on your part to explain the decline in Protestant support. I refered you to the fact up until this year Protestants outnumbered Catholics in support. If firm conviction on a point such as abortion was not tolerable, we would have seen evidence of this well before this election. This disproves your theory, unless you wish to broaden to state before this election catholics were not comfortable with firm convictions.
In point I reject the very premise protestants are uncomfortable with a rigid obesiance to scripture. What you have offered is your own opinion, which cannot be introduced as fact. From my part as a former Protestant, I am telling you the Liberalization of doctrine is the key reason why support declined. They are misleading their congregations that look to them for spirtual guidance OR chasing them to other non denonminational settings as was true in my case.
It was a good map. But it is a bit misleading because the most heavily Catholic areas are states where Kerry won. Still a great map though!
I don't know how else to explain it to you.
All serious Christians are pro-life and all serious Christians reject liberal doctrines. All serious Christians for that treason trend Republican. Both Protestants and Catholics have a contingent that are seriously religious and a contingent that are Sunday morning religious.
The question posed by Patent is, why this time the Catholic support for GOP went up in relation to the Protestant support for the GOP. The explanation cannot be in the Democrats' liberalism or the pro-abortion plank because these did not change in 2004. My hypothesis, and hypothesis it is, is that Kerry's statement about the role of religious conviction in political decisions, not the pro-abort stance, tipped the scale for the Catholics.
Do you understand why a Protestant would sympathize with the view that different people believing different things is good, and a Catholic would not?
Do you understand why a Protestant would sympathize with the view that different people believing different things is good, and a Catholic would not?
No. Nor do I believe you reached that conclusion from any solid data but rather your own view of what Protestants are tolerant of. I reject the conclusion.
It's fine to believe it if you want, but I can't agree with you given my experience in the Protestant church. I am telling you based on my experience the reason there was a change in both Protestant and catholics totals is directly attributable to their leaders (priests, ministers, pastors). If you followed the campaign throughout you know Catholic priests were finally speaking about what what was right and what was wrong to their congregations. There was even movement to have kerry ex-communicated. When a spiritual leader takes scripture and the judgements of the Church seriously, their congregations behavioral patterns and thoughts begin to alter more in accordance with scripture. Similiarly, at the same time the Catholic church was begin to crack down certain protestant congregations were accpeting homosexuals as ministers. This set off a fire storm, one still occuring, and it's resulted in Churches breaking off from traditional protestant denominations or folding into non denominational sectors.
Protestants are not sympathetic to "anything feels good, beleive whatever you want". Otherwise they wouldn't be taking extreme steps of distancing themselves from a leadership that has become corrupt. The reason Protestant totals fell is because people have left the Protestant churches in favor of churches that will abide faithfully to scripture and THOSE churches saw increases in the exit polling date.
Of those that remain you have three segments. People intent on destroying the Church with Liberal doctrine. people fighting to save the church. People that know no better, and expect their "leaders" to spiritually guide them. Only one third of these people would fit your assumption and they are not Christians no matter what they state. 2/3rd's either are holding firm in fundmentalist approach to scripture or desirous of doing God's will by misled by their leaders.
I don't disagree that the Catholic leadership in spots (not en masse) standing up for the Church was a factor in the phenomenon we discuss. The rash of gay "marriage" legislation was a factor energizing the religious right of all denominations, but it cannot be a factor among the mainline Protestants because the movement to mainstream homosexuality was doing very well in the mainline Protestantism.
We need to agree on the terminology. The article mentions decline in GOP support among mainline Protestants and increase among the fundamentalist Protestants. You correctly state that it is because there has been a movement away from the Protestant mainline.
This does not invalidate the fact that the Protestant mainline is inherently liberal because of the decentralizing tendencies in Protestantism since the reformation. You can dismiss them as "not Christian", but the article is not written from that sectarian assumption. They are just the kind of Christians you and I disagree with.
Kerry's statement on the inacceptability of Christian beliefs in politics is abhorrent tio Catholics, and it may be equally abhorrent to fundamentalist Protestants, but in the group where support for the GOP declined -- mainline Protestants,-- it is very much the conventional wisdom.
I think we're coming closer to agreement, though I'd stipulate this liberalizing of doctrine is not actually "mainline". Yet.
Certainly among the leadership it is becoming so, but if it were among congregants their numbers wouldn't be descreasing at the pace they are. Of course at the end once all those that take scripture seriously conclude their exodus, the majority of those remaining will fit your stated opinion and, infact, be the new "mainline".
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