Fri, 05 Nov 2004

Election Reinforces U.S. Religious Divide (AP)

If I hadn't been so busy with the chickens this week, I would've been blogging like mad about the election: I'm pretty freaked out by the results.

What has me deeply concerned is not so much that Kerry lost, but rather the reasons people gave for voting:

When respondents were asked to pick the one issue that mattered most in choosing a president, "moral values" ranked first at 22 percent, surpassing the economy (20 percent), terrorism (19 percent) and Iraq (15 percent).

To put it bluntly, these voter's "moral values" include such things as prayer in schools, Ten Commandment monuments, bans on gay marriage, making abortion a capital offense and teaching creationism in every American biology classroom. And their position on these "moral" choices is exactly opposite my own.

A leading conservative activist, the Rev. D. James Kennedy of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said the voters "have delivered a moral mandate."

"Now that values voters have delivered for George Bush, he must deliver for their values," Kennedy said.

How Bush "delivers" on this "mandate" scares me. But what's even worse is the likely conclusion that the Democratic Party will draw:

The election shows that Democrats in 2008 "are going to have to say they are religiously attuned to America and make it stick and make it authentic," said Michael Cromartie, an expert on evangelicalism at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center. "All future political consultants are going to have to understand religious sensibilities as part of the resume."

So, next time around we may be looking at a choice between two religious right nutjobs, instead of one sleazy American professional politician and a religious right nutjob. I can't wait ...

AP - President Bush's victory, the approval of every anti-gay marriage amendment on statewide ballots and an emphasis on "moral values" among voters showed the power of churchgoing Americans in this election and threw the nation's religious divide into stark relief.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

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orangeguru wrote

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orangeguru / smooth brainshakes wrote

Moral Values

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