First up from the God Machine this week is a look at the 2012 presidential election, and the differences along religious lines. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life published a report this week based on exit polling data, and I put together a chart based on its findings.
There's a fair amount of interesting data here, though the results among Roman Catholic voters are arguably the most electorally significant. In every recent cycle, Catholics have been considered a key swing constituency, particularly throughout Midwest battleground states, and President Obama narrowly won their support, 50% to 48%. It suggests Republicans' efforts to focus on contraception and reproductive rights had limited success, and the Bishops' lobbying largely fell on deaf ears.
Also note, while many on the right hoped 2012 would be the year that Jewish voters abandoned Democrats, that didn't come close to happening. Though Obama fared slightly worse among Jewish voters as compared to 2008, he still enjoyed overwhelming support.
For the purposes of classification, "Other faiths" became a catch-all for a variety of minority religious traditions -- Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and others -- which on their own represent a very small percentage of the voting population. Their support for the GOP remains dismal.
And continue to keep an eye on the religiously unaffiliated -- one of the fastest growing segments of the faith population -- which includes atheists, agnostics, and theists who choose not to associate with any specific tradition. Their lopsided support for Obama reinforces yet another demographic problem for Republicans in the coming years.
As for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), it's not surprising that they would strongly support Mitt Romney -- he was the first Mormon ever to appear on a national ticket -- but there was one curiosity in the results: Romney did slightly worse among Mormon voters this year than George W. Bush did in 2004.
Also from the God Machine this week:
* Congress only had one openly atheist member, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), who lost his re-election bid this week. However, Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who describes herself as a "non-theist," appears likely to prevail in her congressional bid (thanks to reader R.P. for the tip).
* Hawaii elected Congress' first-ever Hindu American, Tulsi Gabbard, a 31-year-old Iraq war veteran, a woman widely seen as a rising star in Democratic politics. Hawaii also elected Mazie Hirono (D) to the U.S. Senate, where she will be the chamber's first-ever Buddhist senator.
* And I'd be remiss if I failed to mention this jarring video of radical TV preacher Pat Robertson, reflecting on "Fifty Shades of Grey" and the fact that he finds porn "boring."
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While I'm an atheist, I have a lot of Catholic friends. Most of whom really have nothing to do with the church when it comes to matters of family, because as one put it:
"why the hell would I take relationship, marriage or child-rearing advice from a priest?"
I'm a progressive Christian - United Methodist - and I too am wondering how they could have left out Protestant denominations in this chart....what up???
Maybe thinks all we Methodists are Evangelicals (perish the thought)?
The original Pew Forum survey did not break down their data by denomination, but it did have separate categories for evangelical and non-evangelical Protestants. Frankly, denominational breakdowns would have been fairly pointless, since born-again Christians and liberal Christians are found in all denominations. This is true even for the United Church of Christ, which is the most progressive of all major American denominations.
In 2007, pundit Michael Gerson described the United Church of Christ as "among the most excruciatingly progressive of Protestant denominations" (Washington Post, 6/29/07). Given that the word excruciating means "relating to the crucifixion" I rather like that description. For we liberals too follow Jesus.
It is unfortunate that we liberal Christians are rather invisible to the general public. But the next time Steve goes to the Tampa Bay area, I can easily provide him a list of a few progressive Protestant churches he can check out.
Let us not forget that religious organizations depend on recruiting, and in the case of Catholics making babies, to fill their ranks. That they would use the political arena to further their means is not surprising. Religious organizations also are steeped in doctrine that is not debatable. They hand down the rules and demand compliance. In a diverse secular democracy there is no place for religious leaders in political affairs. As individuals they have one vote and are entitled to their opinions. But when they speak on behalf of their church doctrine they are out of line and should be sanctioned by the IRS and rejected by the voters. The words of Sam Rayburn to John F Kennedy prior to his 1960 speech to the ministers in Houston rings true today: "They're not ministers, they're politicians".
How did Obama do with Christian's that actually follow Christ?
No body talks about the "the free stuff"called corporate welfare that big, rich businesses enjoy such as, subsidies (oil companies), tax loopholes, hiding money off-shore or not paying taxes at all. So all who gripe about "free stuff", Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance is paid through your pay check--it is not welfare. Just remember when you are old how you wish you had Social Security to put a roof over your head and buy food and Medicare to treat you when you are sick. The Republicans want to take away all safety nets, including Soc. Sec. & Medicare. It's no fun living under a bridge when you're old and sick, while the rich ignore you and kick you to the curb!!! Since the subject is religion. Preach to your own flock and leave politics out of it--freedom FROM religion. It's okay for me not to like your religion in America!! To each his/her own!!!
Even welfare isn't free nor is it really a handout and up until Reagan made up the welfare myth welfare wasn't a bad thing, back when citizens believed that paying taxes was the American thing to do. Why did welfare come about rather simple, before Nixons welfare programs, poor were left to families and charities which failed miserably at taking care of poor, these welfare whiners saw welfare as a way to get out of them trying to provide for family that fell on hard times.
I am feeling a bit disenfranchised by this chart. If "'Other faiths' became a catch-all for a variety of minority religious traditions -- Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sihks, and others," then where do mainline Protestants and orthodox Christians fit? I don't think this chart can present a vary balanced viewpoint of the affect of religion on vote choices in this election when these two substantial groups are excluded.
See my comment, #10.4
Pat Robertson must be watching to much porn to find it boring and how is it these people seem to know so much about porn anyway hmmmm....
Why isn't there a chart for non-evangelical Protestants? You have eliminated Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Unitarian-Universalists, American Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers, etc. from even being considered. There are probably as many people in this category as there are Sikhs, Hindus, and Buddhists, if not more.
This happens so often these days. People just ignore the progressive Protestant community and consider the far-right Evangelical Fundies as representative of the entire Protestant community.
Because churches claimed their members are not of this world and if up against a choice of following man's law or their god's, they'll choose the god every time they have been exempt from taxes. We all know, certainly should know NOW, that they are a political group of pawns. Religion needs to be forced out of our politics and back into churches and churches, well, they need to pay up back taxes for messing around with man's laws and trying to impose their god's will on those who should be up in arms over it. It's time to clean several houses. This is just one.
I would like to see the Male vs. Female data per Religion against this data.
what im amazed at is that the discussion is so much on the chart and not a word is said about that idiot pat and his views on porn. to me thats the story that should be more important here
Pat Robertson co-host would do well in porn. I also think she didn't answer quickly enough about watching porn to seem honest.
It seems odd that the chart leaves out those Christian denominations that are neither Roman Catholic, Evangelical nor LDS. These would be the large segment of voting Americans who attend conventional Protestant churches which are neither fundamentalist nor evangelical (Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopal, Orthodox, and so on). They are certainly not unaffiliated, and make up a much larger group than the evangelicals.
See my comment, #10.4
I thought it was funny that the girl sitting with Pat made like she didn't know anything about 50 shades yet knew it was a trilogy.....She read it, so did Pat.
I'm delighted to see in statistical form what I already suspected, that A) Mormons went for Romney to a lesser degree than for Bush 04, and B) That Mormons went for Romney with slightly less enthusiasm than did Evangelicals. I think there's a myth out there that Mormons are this monolithic voting bloc, and the redness of the state of Utah certainly fuels that assumption. But there's more diversity among the church's population than folks might assume. I'm a progressive and a card-carrying Socialist, and I'm a Mormon; and what's more my politics are what they are BECAUSE of my faith, not despite my faith. Mitt Romney is not the face of Mormonism, and more than a few of my co-religionists were, like me, deeply uncomfortable both with his "policy agenda" (such as it was) and with the way he by default served as a media surrogate for a diverse body of fellow Mormons. I couldn't be more relieved that he lost.
Thanks to this post, I now have to go scrub the memory of Pat Robertson saying "mommy porn" from my memory. Not enough bleach on hand for that task.
In fairness to the Rev. Pat, the term "mommy porn" had already been applied numerous times to those "Fifty Shades" novels. He didn't coin the phrase.
As a member of a mainline (Episcopal) protestant denomination, it's very strange not to see protestant non-evangelical denominations represented here. There are large numbers of Christians in this country who are indeed affiliated but who are neither Roman Catholic nor evangelical...perhaps as many or more than those who self-identify as evangelical. There are many, many mainstream Christians in this country who see the Obama agenda and attitude as much more resembling the teachings of Christ than our evangelical brethren.
I'm a Baptist Christian in Texas who is in the 20% that voted for President Obama. 4 MORE YEARS!
The Catholic vote is not surprising for one simple reason: Americans of Hispanic origins are almost all Catholic.
Obama lost the "white" Catholic vote by about 30 points, but overwhelmingly captured the Hispanic Catholic vote. At this point in the United States, the number of "white" Catholics and Hispanic Catholics are about equal, giving Obama a slight edge in the overall Catholic vote.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/08/us-usa-campaign-religion-idUSBRE8A71M420121108
Based on the link I used, I overstated Romney's "white" Catholic victory. That link only had Romney winning them by 13%, though I swear I'd seen another poll that showed Romney with 65% of the "white" Catholic vote.
Regardless... it was Hispanic Catholics that carried Obama to victory in the Catholic market.
The numbers from pew were romney winning white catholics 59-41 and obama winning hispanic catholics 75-21
No one is saying that the Catholic Church should pay for contraceptives! The government is telling insurance companies they must include contraceptives. The insurance companies have NOT filled the halls of Congress trying to fight that one particular issue although they certainly did on other laws. It is easy to figure out why insurance companies would prefer to be stuck with the cost of contraceptives rather than giving the employer the right to opt out of that coverage. It is cheaper for the insurance company. The cost of the prenatal, deliveries, and pediatrics from unplanned pregnancies not to mention the cost of treatment for problems that arise from those pregnancies to the insurance company would be higher. The Catholic church is not being made to pay for contraceptives; they are however paying lower premiums than they would otherwise because they are not receiving a price hike due to higher costs from a spike in unplanned pregnancies.
I think it is interesting that noone has said anything about the gorrilla in the room. Robertson is past senile.
ChartFAIL! As a non-evangelical Protestant, I'm not on the graph...and there are a significant number of us out here. Please, someone from Maddow-Land pull this dumb thing and rework it.
The more porn you watch, the more boring it becomes.....so Mr Roberts, what have you been doing?
Although the chart is comparative between the various religious categories, it is quite misleading on the number of votes represented. I suggest annotating the highest bar in each category with the actual number of votes represented by that column. If any one was interested then based on the percentage, the number of votes the lower column represents could be quickly estimated.
I'm just guessing here but I suspect having large % leads in "Evangelical" and "Mormon" does not represent many votes while "Catholic" despite the small percentage difference means a large vote advantage. This is probably true of both "other" and "unaffiliated" as well.
Wow, Pat. Imagine that, women are sexual beings!