Seeing A Lot Of Trees, But No Forest
Writing in Slate, Amy Sullivan manages to bemoan the perception of Democrats as hostile to religion, while simultaneously embodying the hostility:
The Pew Research Center’s annual poll on religion and politics, released last week, shows that while 85 percent of voters say religion is important to them, only 26 percent of Americans think the Democratic Party is “friendly” to religion. That’s down from 40 percent in the summer of 2004 and 42 percent the year before that—in other words, a 16-point plunge over three years. The decline is especially troubling because it cuts across the political and religious spectra, encompassing liberals and conservatives, white and black evangelicals, mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Jews.
When only 1 in 4 Americans perceives your party as friendly to religion, you’ve got serious troubles. Sullivan professes to be disturbed:
…[T]he party needs to counter conservative attacks, change the conventional wisdom that Democrats just aren’t religious, and expand the party’s reach to moderate religious voters. To do that, the party will need a little more faith and a whole lot more work.
It’s the little things that count; in this case, I’m left to ponder why Sullivan wants to ‘expand the party’s reach to moderate religious voters’. Why the qualifier? Why not religious voters? For the simple reason that Sullivan, being no doubt a good Democrat, doesn’t really like religious voters, she just wants their vote:
In the past year, stunts by the right have taken a toll on the Democrats. There are the repeated Justice Sunday events, in which Republican congressional leaders bravely defend America from the onslaught of liberal activist judges, and the War on Christmas hysteria, in which Bill O’Reilly defends baby Jesus from secular tyrants at Target. If you say anything enough times on Fox (see: Saddam Hussein, role in 9/11 attacks), you can get some people to believe it. It’s not a surprise that all of this affects conservatives’ views of the Democratic Party’s faith-friendliness.
Notice the dripping contempt; it’s hard to believe people of faith find people such as Sullivan hostile to them, isn’t it? But again, it’s only a certain kind of religious voter that Sullivan is really after:
Of more concern to Democrats is the effect such tactics have on moderate voters. The percentage of self-identified political moderates and independents who believe Democrats are friendly to religion each dropped by 18 points over the past two years, according to Pew. These respondents may not exactly believe the rhetoric of Justice Sunday, but it seems to have planted a seed of doubt in their minds.
And that doubt is fed by media coverage that reinforces images of who is and is not religious. Conservatives complain about media bias all the time, but when it comes to religion, journalistic paradigms help Republicans and hurt Democrats.
Sullivan needs to take a reality pill; it’s not a journalistic convention that Democrats are antagonistic towards religion. Notice the big gaping hole in this bit of analysis:
Rarely is there an acknowledgment that Democratic politicians—and Democratic voters—hold liberal political views precisely because of their religious beliefs, that caring for the most vulnerable in society and protecting God’s creation are imperatives, too.
God’s creation, the most vulnerable – why, what’s a more beautiful part of God’s creation, and more vulnerable, than, say – babies? The problem is huge and possibly impossible to overcome – and the problem is abortion.
Simply put, a self-described religious voter is far more likely than not to hold abortion as an abomination, a preference for consequence-free sex over the responsibilities of parenthood. The drooling fanatics who coin the phrases “Rape Gurney Joe” and “Holy Joe” towards Joe Lieberman only worsen the situation. A good portion of the Democratic Party has adopted Roe v. Wade as its Holy Writ, and a significant (and often overlapping) portion has adopted secularism as its religion.
Sullivan makes a common mistake of those who are in denial; she confuses the message with the messenger. As long as Democratic activists elevate abortion into the most fundamental of personal freedoms, as long as such liberal-dominated institutions as academia adopt the language of moral relativism and anti-Americanism, and as long as ‘concerned’ Democrats like Sullivan ridicule the participants of Justice Sunday, who see their way of life, rightly or wrongly, under seige from liberal judicial activism, the perception of the Democratic Party as hostile to religion will continue to grow.
Now, obviously, there are religious Democrats – it’s institutional hostility that I’m talking about. And that institutional hostility is grounded in policies, not in how those policies are framed. There is no band-aid that will fix this problem. If the Democrats truly want to gain back, say, the Catholic vote, then they must adopt positions that appeal to Catholic voters. It’s not rocket science…if Americans increasingly feel the Democratic Party (again, as an institution) is hostile to religion, that’s because, in its squishy morality and policies (remember, religious people tend to think in absolutes), it is…
I think perhaps the Democrats problem isn’t that they think abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, but that many of them argue the point with conservatives who use language that claims that the goal is for “consequence free sex”. No, the goal is for a woman to control her life. Having an abortion and dealing with the aftermath is a consequence of having sex, is it not?
It’s funny, you claim the policy is the issue, but yet, your choice of frame is indicative of YOUR hostility towards people that like to have sex and then be able to decide whether or not to take a plan B pill. Or, let’s say someone says “you know, I really don’t want this baby, the man I’m with is a douchebag and he’ll never be there, just like my dad, and I don’t want that for the child”. What crime will you charge this woman with if abortion were outlawed and she chose to have one? Would it be manslaughter? Would you charge the doctor who performed the abortion?
If you choose a frame that talks in terms of absolutes (and religious people think in terms of absolutes) you are going to lose. Democrats need MORE moral relativism.
Religious people can believe the government ought to be a secular organism. Those would be “moderate religious people”. You frame this in such a way that presupposes they are mutally exclusive categories.
Also, quite funny how you use the phrase “institutional hostility” and don’t realize that is exactly what “Justice Sunday” events appear to be (in my eyes). Especially since many in those same events don’t want people to be educated about sex. Keeping people in the dark and pretending it’s a taboo subject is just asinine. Is it a coincidence that they want the plan B pill removed from the market? Or general birth control for that matter? How am I not to ridicule these people? It’s damned funny they are so clueless.
The gamble for the democrats is whether or not the country will come along with them on the path towards becoming a more secular nation. As an atheist, I obviously hope we go that route.
The “rare” part of safe, rare, and legal is really just fluff that libs use to make themselves sound more moderate, since most people find abortion repugnant. I’d be willing to bet you could never get Patricia Ireland or Susan Estrich to admit, on camera, that abortion isn’t the best thing since sliced bread.
Mike, you’re making the mistake of thinking I was talking about my own beliefs. Instead, I am talking about what motivates evangelicals and Catholics who are self-described religious voters.
I am a self-described conservative voter, and though I have a religious side, it’s not what motivates me politically. I believe abortion should be legal, reluctantly, but I cringe at how it is elevated into some great ‘right’ that is a pillar of ‘progressive’ politics.
The frame that is important here is not my frame, however (since Democrats will never win me, as a self-described conservative voter), but that of those who label themselves religious voters…
Also, Mike, if you think Democrats need MORE moral relativism…well, here’s Wikipedia:
In philosophy, moral relativism takes the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect absolute and universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition’s truth. Relativistic positions often see moral values as applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or in the context of individual preferences.
Do you really believe the discarding of universal moral standards is the way to electoral victory for the Democrats?…and can you not see that this is in direct opposition to religion? And that your views as an atheist are not the ‘frame’ that will win back religious voters, either, which is what the article and post were about to begin with?…
[...] Update: Mark Coffey has a great commentary on this article as well, with more questions as to what the Dems want – a real connection or just votes? [...]
Mark,
I say the gamble they are making is apparent. But, yes, I do think most people think the government should be secular. I think the fact that there are a large number of people who don’t (possibly 20-30% of the country) makes it that much more of a challenge, but oh well. That’s why I think the framing is such an important facet of politics. It is necessary to control the frame in order to target those moderate religious folks (which, to me equates to “those religious folks that do think the government ought to be secular”).
Also, a moral relativist isn’t saying we should “discard universal moral standards”, they say “there are no universal moral standards, but this platform is better than the republicans platform because…”. I don’t understand why the issues can’t be discussed at great length. The amount of air time given to any particular “story” is just absurd, even the most recent skirmish in Lebanon/Israel. Yes, it should be paid attention to, but that doesn’t mean all other problems disappear. The economy is still an issue. The NSA disagreement is still an issue. Etc.
I think democrats biggest problem regarding abortion is that they don’t talk about it enough in terms of it being a difficult decision to make and one which does have consequences for many women. If that discussion is had it will indeed make it rare as many women will begin to think harder and harder about their decision. You may not agree with this, but I think the best way to avoid abortion is to remove the social stigma from the phrase “teenage mother” or “teenage parent”. They are often looked down upon and that’s unfortunate. Sometimes they are indeed terrible parents but so are a lot of 30 year olds…
I obviously disagree that the left’s rhetoric regarding their goal to make abortion “rare” is empty. I honestly think they want as few of them to occur every year as possible, but still feel a woman ought to be able to choose it for herself without being required by law to consult her husband, parents or friends. I on the other hand would prefer there to be some regulation of the issue regarding what information is made available and a discussion with some variety of social worker/mental health specialist [shrink, whatever], but, like you think it should be legal. I think those that fight so vociferously for this right might be a little crazy, but, everyone has a political item they go crazy over. The fact that many of them are women obviously makes some sense as well…
Also, sorry, read too much into your devil’s advocate role as a religious voter. My mistake once again. However, you seem to identify with the institutional hostility that is a justice sunday event while decrying the institutional hostility that is Jane Hamsher (which is certainly understandable to some degree).
Comrades,
Well, the catholic Church’s stance against abortion certainly isn’t absolute. The church has always made the exception in favor of abortion where the woman’s physical health was at stake, especially if she already had other children who depended upon her. It wasn’t widely disseminated, so to speak, but the exception was always there, and I have confirmed this not only through the Monsignor I used to serve, but other Priests as well.
Now, the problem MOST Americans have with abortion is that it’s being used as a means of birth control, or of convienience, vice a court of last resort to protect a woman’s life. Conservatives realise, for the most part, that sex is a sacrament of marriage, and that sex outside of marriage is fraught with both moral and physical danger.
Since most liberals don’t seem to get the connection (being the moral-relativist, hedonistic sort) sex has only one function: reproduction. Pleasure is a secondary portion of the act, an added bounus, if you will to ensure that humans will WANT to have sex, in order to increase the chances of pregancy. It really is that simple.
No conservative will devalue the enjoyment of sexual activity. It’s just that they, more so than the liberals, realise that sex is a part and parcel of marriage. Marriage ensures that two individuals will be there to help raise the child and provide for it. Marrige ASSUMES that children will be produced.
Abortion, especially upon demand, is not only immoral, but counter to nature’s own design. If there is any good that comes from the current situation, however, it is that the overwhelming majority of abortions are being performed upon liberal women, and liberals, BTW, are a declining percentage of the population, thanks in no small part to their embrace of infanticide through abortion.
Conservatives, on the whole, are much less likely to have abortions, preferring to either raise the child or adopt one from someone else. To that end, Conservatives have an increasing percentage of the population, and that trend will continue for the foreseeable future.
That being said, the only thing required for liberalism to disappear, is for abortion to remain legal, and conservatives to remain patient. Within a few generations at most, it may well be nigh impossible for liberals to maintain any majority in any branch of government. They, of course, will have only themselves to blame for the situation…..
Respects,
Gwedd
Yeah; I saw a report on the news the other day that conservatives are having 41% more children than liberals, and children usually, though not always, tend to espouse the same or similar political views as their parents.
Mike, I’m ambivalent about Justice Sunday-type events – they’re not my cup of tea, and I do see the ‘exploitive’ argument against them – but it is also quite true that many things that run counter to the expressed desire of the electorate are rammed through by judicial fiat…
Aaron, I saw that same report. It said about 80% of people get their politics and values from their parents (I saw another one elsewhere that said about 85%).
Democrats are actually having children below the replacement rate. I saw another report several months ago that indicated Democrat families had about 1.8 children per couple, while Republicans had them at 2.2 (I wish I could find that link again). At this rate, discussing left wing opinions on abortion or moral relativism may be a moot point. They are being bred out of existence.
Gwedd, CT and Aaron: You discount the possibility that the people that don’t adopt their parent’s politics may be mostly people with conservative parents (I haven’t seen data on this, only noting the possibility). So, if (extreme case) 90% of liberal’s children are liberals and 70% of conservatives are conservative, this could potentialy lead to 2.28 (90% * 1.8 + 30% * 2.2) liberal vs. 1.72 conservative. Actually, it’s funny, it would only take the following for it to be a push:
77% of conservatives children switch to liberal
83% of liberals children switch to conservative
23%*2.2 + 83%*1.8 = 2
You could play with the numbers all day.
Do conservatives not have abortions then? Is there data to suggest more liberals have abortions? What about centrists? Could it be more liberals choose to have only a few children? Or perhaps because more of them are lesbian/homosexual couples or just plain single because they’re stinky hippies?
Grasping at straws.
I’d imagine that the remaing 20% are divided down the middle, with a handful switching to third parties or becoming apolitical. I haven’t had any luck finding numbers on this. Any takers?
You can play with numbers all you want. It doesn’t affect realit. Democrats are having fewer children than Republicans. You’d be hard pressed to try to present this as a positive thing for Democrats (or even unimportant) without evidence that more children of Republicans are becoming Democrats than the other way around. I’d be surprised if that 20% were not evenly divided.
I screwed up my html in my last post, so I’ll just paste the link here.
http://www.lifenews.com/nat2525.html
So would I (imagine they’re split, as a guess, but there is no guarantee). But, like I said, it wouldn’t take much to swing either way (towards no big deal, or, yes, it could be even bigger than it seems if more liberal kids are becoming conservatives). In any event, if it were split down the middle, it makes it:
2.2*0.8 + 1.8*0.2 = 2.12 conservative
2.2*0.2 + 1.8*0.8 = 1.88 liberal
13% more vs. 22% if you use 2.2 and 1.8. The numbers don’t mean anything in themselves. Is the basic argument that the shift towards right wing ideology in the country is due to Roe v Wade? It’s possible, but there are quite a few other factors that come into play. I would argue aging population has a lot to do with it. The idea that the older you get the more conservative one becomes.
I also have a question regarding conservatives being more willing to adopt? Where did that conclusion come from, Gwedd? You say:
“Conservatives, on the whole, are much less likely to have abortions, preferring to either raise the child or adopt one from someone else.”
Do you mean they’re more likely to put one up for adoption? Or are you saying they would be more likely to raise a liberal’s child that was put up for adoption? Or some other conservative’s child that was put up for adoption? Or all three? It would be interesting to see some data regarding political affiliation of those who adopt. I’m curious.
Regarding the Roe effect:
Compounding the GOP advantage is what I call the Roe effect. It is a statement of fact, not a moral judgment, to observe that every pregnancy aborted today results in one fewer eligible voter 18 years from now. More than 40 million legal abortions have occurred in the United States since 1973, and these are not randomly distributed across the population. Black women, for example, have a higher abortion ratio (percentage of pregnancies aborted) than Hispanic women, whose abortion ratio in turn is higher than that of non-Hispanic whites. Since blacks vote Democratic in far greater proportions than Hispanics, and whites are more Republican than Hispanics or blacks, ethnic disparities in abortion ratios would be sufficient to give the GOP a significant boost–surely enough to account for George W. Bush’s razor-thin Florida victory in 2000.
CT, from your link:
“The survey found 60 percent of 18-29 year-olds took one of three varying pro-life positions on abortion while only 39 percent agreed with the three pro-abortion stances. Some twenty-six percent of young Americans said abortions should never be legal.
‘Anecdotal evidence and polling over the last several years have demonstrated a clear trend of youth becoming more and more pro-life,’ Holly Smith, director of youth outreach for the National Right to Life Committee, said about the poll.”
Ok, so 39% agree with all three pro-abortion stances (which, presumably included “Do you agree that abortion should be legal in ALL cases?”, maybe not though). And only, yes, only 60% took ONE of the three pro-life positions. I don’t think this poll says anything of the sort regarding trends of youth becoming more pro-life. That means that of the 60%, some of them chose the pro-abortion position on one or two of the questions. An apples to apples would have been phrased thusly:
“The survey found X percent of 18-29 year-olds took all three varying pro-life positions on abortion while only X percent agreed with the three pro-abortion stances.”
But wait, the X’s are already there, huh? It basically says this, while painting it in a great light…
“The survey found 26 [assumed from last sentence, could be wrong, though] percent of 18-29 year-olds took all three varying pro-life positions on abortion while only 39 percent agreed with the three pro-abortion stances.”
That’s 3:2 for those counting. Not sure what it used to be, but seem to recall it being similar, but could be remembering all ages instead.
Now, as for the linked info to another article of his here, I happen to agree with some of the questions they talk about in the survery (like this: 82.4% of 18-29 year-old respondents disagreed with the use of tax dollars to pay for abortions and 74.5% of 18-29 year-olds favor laws that women who are 20 weeks or further along in their pregnancy be given information about fetal pain before having an abortion). However, this bit threw me:
“On the question of whether abortion should not be permitted after the fetal heartbeat begins, 65.5% of 18-29 year-olds agreed, 46.9% strongly so. The human heart begins to beat 18-21 days after fertilization, before most women realize they are pregnant.”
Not according to this. Week 5 is hardly day 18-21.
I don’t know if the discrepancy is due to disagreement or what, but it seems fishy. That’s almost 50% off.
I highly doubt all these questions were asked in previous surveys in order to say unequivocally “polling over the last several years have demonstrated a clear trend of youth becoming more and more pro-life”.
Mark:
All sorts of conclusions can be drawn, but there are quite a few assumptions baked into them like:
1. (A lot) More black liberal women have abortions than more black conservative women (those exist as well you know) or than more black middle women (which, presumably exist as well)
2. The aborted babies would have been registered voters that actually vote
3. There are just as many white women as black women (% statistics are quoted in your comment, not absolute numbers) that have had abortions (which at a cursory glance is untrue, in 1999 57% of abortions were white women).
4. None of them were the second coming of the messiah, in which case, we wouldn’t be having this dicussion…
Which isn’t to say that this may not be true, but I’m sure there are plenty of conservatives that have had abortions…I know a few at the very least (just saying, they’re not strawmen, they actually exist, unless they’re figments of my imagination).
I guess, this is really what I’m trying to say.
“Grasping at straws.”
That’s all Mikey knows how to do – it is, in the essence, his only means of reasoning.
Mark, you said:
I’d say something more like this:
Fargus, come now – three out of four Americans saying Democrats are hostile to religion DOESN’T equal “3 in 4 Americans [being] insecure enough about their religious beliefs that they make them the cornerstone of voting in secular elections”. A false equivalence…
When you see widely disseminated literature in conservative circles about “The War on Christmas” and “The Myth of Separation of Church and State,” is it really that far fetched?
Yes, it is far fetched Fargus. I’m agnostic, and I’m not happy about the religion bashing I see. Just because someone has a problem with religion bashing doesn’t mean religion is the absolute only freaking pillar of reality in their life, or even the biggest. You’re thinking in black and white.
I have yet to hear of any Lutheran, Congregational, Episcopalian, Presbyterian or other main Protestant houses of worship start dictating political preferences to their parishoners. Of course, there exists some houses of worship that do preach politics from their pulpits, but to assume that some kind of monolithic voting bloc is out rampaging across the countryside is fatuous.
I see two canards that are not being confronted here: First Mike says:
and
Then Fargus adds later:
This is an old tactic that makes out a wide swath of devout Catholics and Evangelicals as folks who wish to end the seperation of Church and State. Let me start by saying I am a devout Christian and currently attend an Assembly of God (which is an Evangelical denomination). I have been an evangelical for 25 years. I have never in all that time heard church leaders advocate for a dissolution of a secular goverment. There is a tiny fringe of Dominionists who do wish to do so but they are hardly 20-30% of the Christian community. Further Fargus equates a widespread belief in an attack against Christmas with the extreme fringe position on the church and state to give it a gloss of credibility.
The bogeyman of a theocratic govermant I think is envoked by two things generally. First by a discomfort with Christians and conservatives who think that folks should live in a certain, narrowly defined way; and the fear that they will act aggressively on that belief. Second, although Dominists are a tiny and extreme fringe; the Democratic party has been overrun by their own extreme fringes and are terrified the same thing will happen in the Republican party. This is the spectre that haunts them that your quiet (as well as your loud) Catholic neighbor will become the American Taliban, a populace blindly following fanatical leaders.
Faith is “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” for something unquatifiable, like God, that is a greater discomfort to those who are already discomforted by values espoused by Christians.
For those of us who are not active churchgoers, but still consider ourselves to be of a spiritual mindset, you make excellent points here.