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A look at the numbers

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Illinois
Polls

* A new national survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with The Brookings Institution found that 52 percent of Americans favor gay marriage, while 41 percent oppose it. Another 7 percent said they were undecided.

* But the survey can also help us figure out why there is such push-back among African-American churches and Republicans to gay marriage here in Illinois.

For instance…

Among black Americans, nearly half (49%) are theological conservatives, 30% are theological moderates and 14 percent are theological liberals.

That compared to 40-25-18 for whites, so, overall, African-Americans are quite a bit more conservative theologically than whites.

That doesn’t explain everything, of course. New York has a higher percentage of African-Americans than Illinois, but it still approved gay marriage.

* And…

Republicans (57%) are nearly twice as likely as independents (31%) or Democrats (31%) to be theological conservatives. Tea Party members have a similar theological profile to Republicans overall, as nearly 6-in-10 (59%) are theological conservatives.

That Tea Party bent is what frightens incumbent Republicans the most, because that’s where their primary campaign opposition has been coming from during the past few cycles.

* And this is why the opposition appears to be literally dying off…

Religious conservatives make up smaller proportions of each successive generation, from 47% of the Silent Generation, 34% of the Baby Boomers, 23% of Generation X and 17% of Millenials.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 12:58 pm

Comments

Here we probably need to define better also what “conservative” means. It means different things in different contexts. Partly it’s a conceptualization of what God is truly like. God is not always a benign, bearded, Santa-like figure, not for all faiths; religious liberals often miss this.

For Rev. James Meeks, for instance, based on previous history including his Hell Houses, his motivation appears perfectly rational, _if_ you accept his underlying premises: he is trying all out to ban gay marriage in Illinois because he sincerely believes he is helping to save people from burning in Hellfire, for all eternity. From that perspective, I don’t think the route forward is _just_ to marginalize or call his opinion hateful; if you buy his premise about what God is truly like, it makes a certain sense, and in his own way he’s motivated by a desire to “help” gay couples.

What I think we need to explain, is the above -is- a fundamentally religious belief, and there is a separation of church and state, and people in the state of Illinois have a right to vote to go to Hell, if they have VERY different, less “conservative” opinions about the Almighty, and His / Her attitudes to same sex couples. Put bluntly, Meeks’ God is kind of repugnant, to some of us, and we’re willing to place a bet that Meeks is very wrong. That’s equally our right to do so, to place such a bet, and it’s not Meeks’ job to save us from the consequences of our decisions. If he wants to tell his congregation to stay away from gay marriage, that’s his religious business and his conscience. But it’s increasingly not a vision of God that a majority of Illinoisans share (if they have any conception of God, period) and Meeks and other pastors have got to get ready for this culture shift.

http://www.wbez.org/story/news/local/hell-house-generates-controversy

Comment by ZC Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 1:25 pm
It seems to me the conservative Christians would prefer gays be able to lawfully wed. It would mean that though they sin by being gay, at lesst they would no longer be committing the sin of having sex outside of marriage.

Comment by Chavez-respecting Obamist Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 1:36 pm
hmm but if religious conservatives are the only ones who are properly propogating, shouldnt they be increasing in numbers while everyone else dwindles

Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 1:43 pm
==”And this is why the opposition appears to be literally dying off…”==
But do people get more conservative as they get older? People don’t hold the same views throughout their lives - at least I don’t.

Comment by Darienite Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 2:02 pm
Darienite

“Show me a young Conservative and I’ll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I’ll show you someone with no brains.” - Winston Churchill

Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 2:05 pm
Sorry, the adage that the young become more conservative as they age doesn’t apply to Millennials with respect to religion.

“Fully one-in-four members of the Millennial generation - so called because they were born after 1980 and began to come of age around the year 2000 - are unaffiliated with any particular faith.

Indeed, Millennials are significantly more unaffiliated than members of Generation X were at a comparable point in their life cycle (20% in the late 1990s) and twice as unaffiliated as Baby Boomers were as young adults (13% in the late 1970s).

Young adults also attend religious services less often than older Americans today. And compared with their elders today, fewer young people say that religion is very important in their lives.”

http://www.pewforum.org/Age/Religion-Among-the-Millennials.aspx

Comment by Millennial Mike Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 2:42 pm
Quoth the survey:

“Interviews were conducted by telephone among a random sample of 2,002 adults 18 years of age or older in the entire United States (800 respondents were interviewed on a cell phone).”

Partisan breakdown, please…

Comment by Cincinnatus Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 2:42 pm
One big difference between NY and IL is that more Republicans voted for marriage equality in NY. There were four GOP senators who voted for it in NY compared to one in IL. I’m pretty sure there were more than two Republicans voting Yes in the NY state assembly, (though a search hasn’t given me the number). It appears then that the key difference is that IL Republicans are more conservative.

Comment by reformer Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 2:45 pm
We’re over the divisiveness that religion promotes.

Many of our first memories were watching religious extremists kill 2,977 Americans on 9/11. We haven’t experienced what it’s like to live in America without being in a war.

Most of us were in highschool at the start of the wars, and 12 years later it seems like nothing has changed.

Couple that with the Catholic Church Child Abuse Scandal and the use of religion to justify discrimination against gays who want to marry(70% of us support marriage equality)
…it’s not hard to see why we’re less religious.

“Data from the General Social Surveys (GSS), which have been conducted regularly since 1972, confirm that young adults are not just more unaffiliated than their elders today but are also more unaffiliated than young people have been in recent decades.

In GSS surveys conducted since 2000, nearly one-quarter of people ages 18-29 have described their religion as “none.” By comparison, only about half as many young adults were unaffiliated in the 1970s and 1980s.”

Comment by Millennial Mike Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 2:52 pm
Meeks might make sense if IL was amending the Bible. It is not so he ought to go back to counting the love offerings and wait for Bruce Rauner’s limo to pick him up for lunch

Comment by CircularFiringSquad Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 3:08 pm
Not really Ghost. I was raised Baptist but now I’m an atheist.

Comment by Chavez-respecting Obamist Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 5:51 pm
==Partisan breakdown please==

I altogether agree…it’s quite annoying when the so-called findings/numbers in A Poll are just thrown your way with no thorough explanations by the Group/Organization conducting the Poll…!

Comment by Just The Way It Is One Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 8:02 pm
==I altogether agree…it’s quite annoying when the so-called findings/numbers in A Poll are just thrown your way with no thorough explanations by the Group/Organization conducting the Poll…!==

You know Rich linked to the whole report, right? Report page 50, PDF page 56

Democratic: 32, Independent: 37, Republican: 25, Tea Party Movement: 10

Comment by Precinct Captain Tuesday, Jul 23, 13 @ 9:03 pm
Only 17% of Millennials are religious conservatives = progress.

Comment by Mac Wednesday, Jul 24, 13 @ 6:50 am
I like to see geographical breakdowns on national polls too. The extreme conservatism of the South skews national poll results.

Comment by Mugwump Wednesday, Jul 24, 13 @ 7:23 am