Who are the Secular Right?
Well, this is has been one unexpected day. I’ve fixed the RSS I hope. More fixes no doubt to come. But I decided that looking at the comments some data might be warranted. Who are the Secular Right? To answer that question I looked at the General Social Survey. The GOD variable has the following options:
Don’t Believe
No Way To Find Out
Some Higher Power
Believe Sometimes
Believe But Doubts
Know God Exists
I classified the first 4 as “Secular,” and the last 2 as “Religious.” I then split the Seculars into the Right and Left half politically (so moderates are excluded). Additionally, I took the Religious and limited them to avowed Fundamentalists who were on the political Right. Therefore, I constructed 3 categories, “Secular Center-Right,” “Secular Center-Left” and “Religious Right,” and compared a host of variables. You can see the results in the charts below.
Note: The geographic divisions are from the Census.
Sixty something % male – ouch!
Homosexuality always wrong 50% of the time? Why do we (Secular Center Right) care, other than the ick factor? I can see the Religious Right caring, but see no good reason for this on the SCR. We need to get over this.
I can see the Religious Right caring
The “I” is the critical point. It is easy to look within yourself, introspect, and then extrapolate “reasonably.” But empirically it seems people obviously disagree. Your contention may be right, or not, but expect me to continue looking for these data which might show the plurality of opinion on the “Secular Right.”
I suppose the response I was soliciting was the answer to why people who self-identify as SCR feel that homosexuality is always wrong, since upon introspection I could not arrive at what I would consider a reasonable answer.
There’s also a useful distinction to be drawn between faith and religion.
“I’m not a pillar of the church, I’m a buttress. I support it from the outside.”
- Churchill
since upon introspection I could not arrive at what I would consider a reasonable answer.
Perhaps is not the root of the perception of wrongness?
Interesting. Do you have data on income or occupation? And what % of Americans are secular right under your criteria?
@Conservative Dilettante
I too am curious. I am quite secular for a righty and quite right for a secularist, and I can’t figure out either, why others in our quadrant would feel homosexuality is wrong. I can only surmise that some secular rightists agree approximately with Ayn Rand on the matter.
Also of interest there are John Derbyshire’s thoughts on the subject.