Pew's study on Politics and Religion
Not exactly local but I'm fascinated by this. Amy Sullivan writing in Slate on God's Party.
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.
11 comments:
Your lies have worked.
Nice work, Bill.
"ILLINOIZE -- Featured Illinois bloggers and commenters talk about state and local politics"
A map of the state of Illinois is available here: http://tinyurl.com/pddcc
It is sad that this site has gone from a wide variety of interesting bloggers to nothing more than repeated posts from Baar, Skinner and Ruberry.
Bring back Staniec. She was nuts but at least her posts were entertaining.
Austin,
Get to the bottom of the story and check the comments on Obama.
Supposedly he's the cure for this dilemma the Dems face.
I have been tempted to hunt for some of your posts on Illinoize on Rove and Plame... now that truth be know on that story....
I haven't read the study.. but the key I think is people see the party as hostile to religion.
One can be an agnostic-atheist or just about anything else and still friendly or at least not unfriendly to religion.
I'm a religous guy of sorts, and anti-clerical in the sense I like to see clergy out of politics... but I like to think I respect religions.
Anon 2:01,
I deleted your comment and reposted below with the hyper link embeded so it wouldn't push everything on the left, down to the bottom.
-Baar
Basically being an agnostic atheist, I personally could care less if the Dems address their "issues" with beliefs.
But seeing how it appears to me that religous arguments have been corrupted in such a way to instill bad policies in this nation, I guess it is good to see a Dem response.
Regarding Obama, I found his podcast Keynote at Call to Renewal very interesting, rational, and non-offensive, which given the subject surprised me.
link to Sen Obama's speech on mp3
I was just providing my "religous" affiliation with my post. But I agree with your main point, having the perception of being anti-religous will hurt the Dems in any election. It is interesting to see them framed as anti-religous which makes republicans pro-religous. But are we really talking about Christianity?
Regardless how did this perception come about?
By taking the pro-choice side of the abortion debate?
So instead of being for small government, Dem's are for sinning against God.
By fighting relgious extremism domestically?
So instead of being for equal rights, Dems are for sinning against God.
By keeping ID out of science text books?
Instead of seeing Science and Religion as two different and separate entities, the Dems are denying the existence of God.
btw, I doubt many Muslims view Republicans as friendly toward religion.
I'm anon 3:15, my point is just that do you Bill believe that the Dems are "unfriendly" to religion in some way that is bad leadership? If so I am curious as to what specifically you would like to see them do differently.
For everyone who wants this to be state discussion, what would Obama have to do to prove that he is actually motivated by religous principles?
Furthermore, do we want our leaders being motivated by religious principles? I got no problem with it, I just want to know what they are from the start.
I am frustrated when people talk about Christian values, Muslim values, or any other kind of values without telling me what they are.
anon 3:15
The Dems I know are not unfriendly to religion. I think the charges of Theocracy from leaders though, against the GOP, have backfired on them.
People who talk values send up red flags for me.
I think Obama's attempts and bridging this values or religion gap have been clumsy.
The problem is there are real issues at hand with abortion, redefining marriage, and it's acceptable and desirable to turn to faith traditions for guidance.
When people do that, it's not being theocratic.
I listen carefully to Bush when he talks religion and what I always hear is an American Civil Religion. It's really not Christian but much more rooted in the civil religion that came out of the Civil War and Lincoln.
Then its all filtered through the world war 2 experience which I think weighs on Bush too from his dad (as it would for most of our generation as we grew up with these stories from our parents).
People made fun of Bush in the debates because he picked Jesus as a his favorite philosopher instead of Schopenhauer or someone more wordy I guess... but I suspect most Democrats were ok with that pick... and picking Jesus doesn't make someone a theocrat or even a Christian...
so bottom line is I don't think Democrats unfriendly to Religion... they've just played some bad political cards as this poll seems to suggest.
Bill,
In the interests of saving your valuable time, I am providing the link to the single post to which you refer. http://tinyurl.com/foyor
If you read the post you will see that it refers to the following Illinois figures: Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Illinois governor Rob Blagojevich.
I submit that many, if not all, of those individuals are central to "state and local politics."
-- SCAM
Post a Comment