Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJune 23rd, 2008
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public life has released its latest survey results. In addition to questions about church attendance, political affiliation, belief in God, and other religious and social questions, they asked the following:
Tell me whether the FIRST statement or the SECOND statement comes closer to your own views, even if neither is exactly right.
1 – Homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society
2 – Homosexuality is a way of life that should be discouraged by societyOf their respondents, 50% said accept and 40% said discourage. Another 5% said that they agree with neither or with both and 5% didn’t know or refused to answer.
Looking at religious breakdown, the following all had a majority who responded with the first statement: Mainline Churches, Catholics, Other Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Other Faiths and the Unaffiliated. Additionally, while the following did not have more than 50%, they had more accept responses than discourage responses: Orthodox, Hindus.
Those who had a firm majority responding with the second statement were: Evangelical Churches, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Muslims. Those with a plurality of discourage responses were: Historically Black Churches.
This should give us guidance in our upcoming discussions about equalities and law, especially the marriage discussions in California and Florida. In our appeal we need not abandon or ignore religion.
It seems clear that messages can be crafted to Jews and to Mainline Christians that can appeal to the doctrines and values surrounding social justice.
Further this tells us that while the Catholic hierarchy may be resistant to marriage equality, lay Catholics are twice as likely to be receptive to our message as not. And while historically Black Churches may loudly condemn gay people, parishioners are only slightly more likely to be hostile than not. These are two areas in which an appeal to faith may yield a positive result.
And an outreach to voices in the Orthodox (Christian) community may find an untapped source of support.
California has significantly more Catholics and Unaffiliated persons than the national average and fewer Evangelical, Mainline, and Historically Black Churches. Florida closely mirrors the nation with slight variations.
One encouragement can be found in that California’s religious demographics are similar to those in Arizona (the only state to defeat a gay marriage amendment) only with 6% more Catholics and 5% fewer Evangelicals.
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Joel
June 24th, 2008
What are the statistics for agnostics and atheists. I hear they overwhelmingly support the gay agenda(in the ‘everyone has an agenda’ sense).
toujoursdan
June 24th, 2008
It’s interesting to see mainline churches score over 50% when many of them still have very restrictive policies. I wonder if that opposition will soften over time.
Joel
June 24th, 2008
“It’s interesting to see mainline churches score over 50% when many of them still have very restrictive policies. I wonder if that opposition will soften over time.” Maybe, after all, religion is the product of a culture.
Kel Munger
June 24th, 2008
And you can forget about the Jehovah’s Witnesses, no matter what their opinion is.
They don’t vote.
Ephilei
June 30th, 2008
I’m very surprised at the Orthodox response. I’m part of an Orthodox church and I’m pretty sure I’m the only gay affirming person.
Depending on the poll, up to 75% of Americans identify as “Christian” while attenders, practicers and/or people subscribing to core Christian tenets is a tiny fraction of that, so I don’t put my hopes too high.
@Tim – How are you defining “defeating” a anti-marriage bill? People in IL attempted and failed as well, tho never got to the floor.
Timothy Kincaid
June 30th, 2008
Ephilei, I meant to say that Arizona is the only state to defeat an anti-gay marriage amendment at the ballot box.
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