OTTERS: Why bring religion into it at all?
In response to my quotation from a National Religions Campaign Against Torture press release criticizing the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act, Waskommeng replied:
This is a good goal, but I simply don’t get why we can’t appeal to…
So that’s actually why I think it’s important for moderate to progressive liberal voices to be heard.
Here are the numbers:
http://religions.pewforum.org/reports
I’m not quite sure what the breakdown is on who would support Rick Perry’s extreme views and who would support my extreme views. It’s also tricky when you throw the Catholics into the mix because there are a large portion of people who still identify as Catholic but haven’t been in any way involved in the church in a decade.
The Evangelicals have 26.3%. Mainline Protestants represent 18.1% and shrinking. Mainline Protestants are divided roughly down the middle on a lot of issues. The Presbyterians aren’t really a liberal denomination—and the most recent vote on same-sex marriage failed with 49% in favor. Allowing the ordination of people in same-sex relationships passed with around 53%. But that’s only the largest Presbyterian denomination. The PCA is much more conservative.
The Evangelical percentage is also tricky—because that’s going to represent a lot of Southern Baptists. As we know from things like maps the South is a lot more conservative. It also has a lot higher church attendance—though much of that is cultural.
Roughly speaking, I would guess that the split is probably about 2/3 Perry 1/2 me across all the denominations in the U.S.. If you control for geography, it probably evens out a bit. (I would guess that it still goes against me, if only because we have these very huge, very conservative megachurches.)
(via thecallus)
