The Labour Humanist

The Republicans and their "secular problem"

What's the biggest block to the Republicans reconnecting with the US electorate? According to Bill Scher on the Huffington Post it's their "secular problem".

In the 2006 midterms the Democrats crushed Republicans among secular voters, broadly defined as those who attend church seldom (favoring Democrats 60% to 38%) or never (67% to 30%). Republicans retained strong support among those who attend church more than weekly. But among those who only go weekly -- the larger portion of the religious vote -- the Republican lead shrunk from 15 points to 7.

Scher argues:

"Republicans failed to be competitive among secular voters, while Democrats were at least competitive among regular churchgoers. And since the secular vote is roughly equal to the regular churchgoing vote, according to the last several national election exit polls, that means Republicans and their conservative base have a far bigger secular problem than their rivals have a religion problem."

And a possible solution:

"One symbolic act that might be useful would be to have some conservative politicians come out of the closet and announce they are atheists or agnostics. If it was clear that conservatism fully embraced religious diversity, including those who do not worship God, that would allay concerns that conservatism is about installing a soft theocracy."

Speaking from this side of the Atlantic it would also help if some Democrats demonstrated a bit more back bone and "outed" themselves as non-religious instead of pandering to anti-atheist prejudice. The Secular Coalition for America is about to announce the results in a contest to find the highest elected atheist/humanist/freethinker in the US...an interesting exercise but also a very depressing one which might find that although the non-religious make up close to 20% of US voters they constitute exactly 0% of elected officials in Congress or the Senate.

Candidates for the US presidency...prospects grim for for gays...oldies...atheists..

From this USA Today/Gallup research the presidential prospects of any gay black atheist candidates look grim, to say the least:

If Your Party Nominated A Generally Well-Qualified Candidate
 For WH '08 Who Was ___,  Would You Vote For That Person? 
                           
                          Yes No       
Catholic                  95%  4%                
Black                     94   5
Jewish                    92   7
A woman                   88  11
Hispanic                  87  12
Mormon                    72  24
Married for third time    67  30
72 years old              57  42
A homosexual              55  43
An atheist                45  53

Part of this question has specific candidates in mind, John McCain would be 72 when elected, Mitt Romney is a Mormon, Barack Obama is black and Rudy Giuliani has been married three times. 

From the perspective of this blog, the huge levels of prejudice against atheists in the USA is both and disappointing and sad.

This kind of survey would be more interesting if other options had been added...what about voters views on Muslim or evangelical Christian candidates? And if there were some international comparisons between western democracies. It's hard to believe that a significant proportion of the electorate in the UK, France, Sweden, Holland etc would be prejudiced against an atheist politicians, but it would be interesting to see the exact numbers.

US Congress: if the science don't fit your politics...ignore it

How can it be that someone's politics determines whether they accept scientific evidence?  Yet in the US Congress there's an incredible split along party lines on the acceptance of man's contribution to global climate change. A National Journal survey of 72 Congress members found that almost all Democrats accepted climate change and most Republicans rejected it:

Surely politics is about what to do about the real world around us, be it human society or our physical environment. Take gravity as a well established law of science, a political consequence of gravity might be to say we don't want heavy objects dropping from building sites and hurting innocent passers-by so politicans act by passing health and safety laws. Now, if you were very right wing you might argue against safety laws but you wouldn't launch a campaign to cast doubt on gravity theories...would you? Because it's hard to tell these days.

Barack Obama: Are we wrong to be put off by the pious language?

Some Democrat leaning secular/liberal voters have been put off by what they see as Barack Obama's pious language.  Early impressions from this side of the Atlantic included what appeared an uncomfortable rush to position Obama as the man to move the Democrats towards evangelical voters. But Hemant Mehta has looked deeper into Obama's positions and speeches and argues that despite the pious language Obama is getting the policy right on issues that concern secular Humanist voters.

Mehta argues that Obama is simply saying he understands where religious people are coming from and doesn't want to shut them out of national debate, and uses this quote from an Obama speech, which I found at least, to be quite reassuring:

"(Conservative leaders of the Religious Right) need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice… Given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers… And even if we did have only Christians within our borders, who's Christianity would we teach in the schools? James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is O.K. and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount -- a passage so radical that it's doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application?... If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing."

Obama may at times sound like an evangelical but Mehta believes he is on the right side when it comes to issues such as church-state seperation and stem cell research. The evolution of the Obama campaign to seek the Democrat nomination for the next presidential race is going to be very interesting indeed.