Thursday, November 04, 2004
Telling Tallies
Interesting statistic:
(source AP via Free Republic)
41 percent of the electorate is made up of religiously active people in the way we normally designate that - people who attend services weekly. That is a lot of people. This is one reason why the attempt to totally secularize everyday life causes so many waves. It's not that people want a national church. What they want is to acknowledge that the sacred has meaning in every day life. And the bad talk about Christianity that has become fashionable in some circles, the desire to eliminate things to make the world safe for non-Christians will always cause bad feelings. Last year, the story about one city allowing of Moslem and Jewish symbols during the holidays (because they were considered ethnic symbols) but not Christian just fed that bad feeling. You may not be Christian, or like to see religious imagery or talk in the public arena, but it is part of the reality of living in America. This big a sector of the population just can't be swept away, or worse, perhaps, pushed too far into a corner without real repercussions. You can't ask believers to act like they were atheists in public without expecting stress. And perhaps, the strength of response on the issue of anti- gay marriage amendments is a result of some of that. Think about it.
Bush was favored by 61 percent of people from all faiths who attend services weekly; they made up 41 percent of the electorate. Democrat John Kerry drew 62 percent of Americans who never attend worship, but they only accounted for 14 percent of voters.
(source AP via Free Republic)
41 percent of the electorate is made up of religiously active people in the way we normally designate that - people who attend services weekly. That is a lot of people. This is one reason why the attempt to totally secularize everyday life causes so many waves. It's not that people want a national church. What they want is to acknowledge that the sacred has meaning in every day life. And the bad talk about Christianity that has become fashionable in some circles, the desire to eliminate things to make the world safe for non-Christians will always cause bad feelings. Last year, the story about one city allowing of Moslem and Jewish symbols during the holidays (because they were considered ethnic symbols) but not Christian just fed that bad feeling. You may not be Christian, or like to see religious imagery or talk in the public arena, but it is part of the reality of living in America. This big a sector of the population just can't be swept away, or worse, perhaps, pushed too far into a corner without real repercussions. You can't ask believers to act like they were atheists in public without expecting stress. And perhaps, the strength of response on the issue of anti- gay marriage amendments is a result of some of that. Think about it.
# posted by Knitting a Conundrum @ 4:56 PM 
