November 06, 2004

Excellent Op-Ed

I hope the Dr. Bob and everyone else who thinks that Bush's victory this week was based on a huge turnout of evangelical Christians reads this New York Times Op-Ed entitled The Values-Vote Myth. Key Quote:

Here are the facts. As Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center points out, there was no disproportionate surge in the evangelical vote this year. Evangelicals made up the same share of the electorate this year as they did in 2000. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who are pro-life. Sixteen percent of voters said abortions should be illegal in all circumstances. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who say they pray daily.

...

Much of the misinterpretation of this election derives from a poorly worded question in the exit polls. When asked about the issue that most influenced their vote, voters were given the option of saying "moral values." But that phrase can mean anything - or nothing. Who doesn't vote on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.

(Via InstaPundit)

Posted by Blog Jones at November 6, 2004 10:46 AM | Category: Politics

Comments

Here's one very discouraged liberal, who hopes that's true. And is beginning to believe so.

I do think we liberals need to reclaim the word "morality" - fundamentalists shouldn't have the corner on the morality market.

True liberals are concerned about America (and more importantly, humanity) and the direction we're headed.

We believe it's immoral to discriminate against people because of their race or sexual identity. We believe it's immoral to send young women and men off to die in an ill-conceived war.

And we wonder about the morality of people who are concerned about the future of a small cluster of cells which have not yet formed an embryo, but mock a fully-grown human being who is about to be put to death under our increasingly questionable system of capital punishment.

These are issues of morality, too. And people who disagree with the relgious right, people who are not even religous, are not automatically immoral.

Posted by: Bob at November 6, 2004 01:34 PM

I guess it all depends on whose "statistics" you want to believe.

See http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdateNarrow&BarnaUpdateID=174

Posted by: Barbara H. at November 10, 2004 02:13 PM
Due to the proliferation of comment spam, I've had to close comments on this entry. Sorry. Spammers ruin it for everybody. If you really, really want to add a comment to this entry, email me.