Christians moving towards Obama

In a significant political shift, monthly churchgoers are backing Democrat Barack Obama in this year’s presidential race, according to a new poll by the nonpartisan group Faith in Public Life.

The results of this poll show that Mr. Obama's move to reach out to faith-based voters has been very successful; the survey shows that over 60 percent of Americans who attend religious services once or twice a month support Obama/Biden. This demographic shift is significant because Democrat John Kerry lost that group in 2004, and it may have cost him the election.

It is also important to look at how Christians of different generations are viewing the election and the candidates:

On a broader range of issues from gay marriage to the role of government at home and abroad, the survey suggests that the contours of the culture war are fading.

“Younger Americans, including younger Americans of faith, are not the culture war generation,” said Robert Jones, who conducted the survey. “Young Catholics, Protestants and evangelicals are really bridging the divides that have really entrenched the older generation.”

For example, white evangelicals between 18 and 35 strongly oppose abortion rights but are less conservative than older evangelicals about same-sex marriage and more supportive of active government providing services at home and engaged in diplomacy abroad. Young first-time voters are heavily supporting Mr. Obama. Among those voting for the first time, 71 percent favor the Illinois senator.

Younger Catholics more strongly support Mr. Obama, abortion rights and more active government than their elders. While older Catholics are split between the presidential candidates, those 18-35 favor Mr. Obama by 15 points (55 percent to 40 percent).

Support for same-sex marriage is significant among young religious Americans. Among young white mainline Protestants and Catholics, close to half (48 percent and 44 percent respectively) support same-sex marriage. And Young white evangelicals are twice as likely as older evangelicals to say that gay couples should be allowed to marry.

Latinos are driving the young Catholic vote. Four in 10 young Catholics are Latinos. Mr. Lindsay cites Texas as an example where many young Hispanics are mobilizing for the election, motivated in part by Catholic social teaching to encourage a bigger role for government in solving society’s ills.

When analysing the above information, it is important to also consider the following:

Shortly before he became Pope Benedict, in his letter to Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explained what a voter’s attitude should be toward abortion.

“There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty,” he said, “but not, however, with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”

But he added that a Catholic must sometimes vote for a candidate who is not perfect: “When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”

While Obama is not 100% in line with all of Catholic Tradition and Teaching -- and why should he be, since he is a member of a United Churches of Christ congregation? -- many Catholic youth and young adults feel that in the words of Benedict XVI, they have good reason to vote for Obama/Biden on Election Day because they support key beliefs about the life and dignity of the human person.

Pax!

The survey of 2,000 adults, conducted Aug. 28-Sept. 19, has an error margin of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, meaning results can vary by that much in either direction. For results among young adults, the error margin is 3 percentage points.