Political punditry is rife with “fake facts.” Basically, empirical assertions which are false but assumed to be true. Perhaps the readership of political journalism is stupid. Perhaps the writers of political journalism are stupid. Perhaps both. No idea. So a new “series,” which I will label “fake fact,” facts assumed to be true by the stupid and ignorant which are wrong, and have been shown to be wrong by political scientists for a long time.
Consider this Politico article, Dems may lose Catholics over abortion. Here’s a fact:
According to exit polls, President Barack Obama won the support of 53 percent of Catholic voters, a seven-point increase over the showing of the Democrats’ 2004 nominee, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a Catholic. Among Latino Catholics, who are often more conservative than their white counterparts on social issues, Obama did even better, winning more than two-thirds of their support, a 14-point improvement over Kerry’s totals, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center.
Obama beat Kerry by by:
5 points for males
6 points for women
2 points for whites
14 points for Latinos
12 points for the young 18-29
5 points for less than $50 K
6 points for more than $50 K
etc. etc. He swung the whole electorate, as one would expect. As for Catholic views about abortion, ABANY for the GSS below (Yes = yes to abortion on demand)…. (all except blacks are after year 2000)
THIS IS LIMITED TO HISPANICS:
THIS IS LIMITED TO BLACKS:
DEMOCRATS:
REPUBLICANS:
Of course, one can object that a lot of these people “aren’t real Catholics.” In some circumstances this is an important consideration, but since I believe all religion is fiction anyhow I will take people at their word as to their religion.
Hmm. I think the assumption of Catholic fundamentalism, or the over-emphasis on it, is a form of very protestant atheism. The reaction in Britain to the crashing into the twin towers by Islamic fundamentalists has been a marked increase in anti-Catholicism amongst the “left”, whilst the right wing gets to attack Islam. I put left in scare quotes because anti-Catholicism in Britain is historically nationalistic ( on the other hand voters for the anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim BNP *may* be reacting to facts on the ground and not in the least influenced by ).
recently there was a debate with Stephen Fry and Hitchens on Catholicism – the opposition were a clergyman and a conservative politician – both Fry and Hitchens ate their lunch.
The question though is why this debate, and not on on Islam? Or Orthodox? Or fundamentalist protestantism? To be fair Hitchens mixes it up, but Fry – who as a homosexual concentrated on Catholic homophobia is merely playing to the English prejudices.
Anyway, as far as I can see voting for liberalism in the US correlates with Catholicism, the parts of the country the most liberal are the most Catholic. The more Catholics migrate to Texas the more liberal it becomes. All South American countries bar one ( and all European countries) have no laws against homosexuality – therefore that is most of the countries which are liberal on homosexuality are Catholic. in terms of civil partnerships if you are born into a country where that is legal, it is almost certainly a majority Catholic country.
As for the one country in South America proper which is bright red ( imprisonment for life) – Guyana, 8.1% Catholic. The Caribbean is littered with countries with light brown markers, or red. One is Cuba ( communist, of course). The rest, as far as I know from the history are British Caribbean. Jamaica etc.
The right to marriage, or civil partnership is available in Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia and Ireland next year. Most Western European countries are liberalism ( protestant or Catholic), but only Catholic in Central and South-Eastern Europe have civil partnership rights ( but there is very little anti-Greek Orthodox bullying in the British media).
And in South America: cvil partnerships legal in COlombia, Ecudor, Brazil, French Guina ( haha), Argentina, Uruguay all have rights to civil partnership – still massively controversial in the US though less so in Catholic plurarity States. Statistically this means if born in a country with civil partnership rights anywhere on Earth it is probably catholic, if born into a country which bans homosexuality in South America ( including the Carribean) it was colonised by the British, and is minority Catholic.
So why were the English having this debate on Catholicism and homosexuality? I think that the old Northern Ireland adage about protestant atheists, and catholic atheists holds through universally.
See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_homosexuality_laws.svg
I think in general you are right as those numbers indicate though I do think there is merit to the Catholics and abortion issue as far as Democrats are concerned.
It is true that even amongst church-going Catholics opposition to abortion is not stronger than amongst church-going Protestants, in fact it tends to be a tad bit stronger amongst the Protestants. (21.4% of white church-going Catholics support abortion for any reason, 16.5% amongst white church-going Protestants). But the numbers do show these devout Catholics to be strongly pro-life regardless even if slightly less so than devout Protestants. Church-going Mexican Catholics are about as pro-life as church-going white Protestants.
What makes it interesting though is that white church-going Protestants are basically in the bank for Republicans (65.1% lean Republican, only 21.9% lean Democrat) and have been basically since the days of Lincoln whereas white church-going Catholics are in play for Democrats in spite of their strong opposition to abortion (41.4% lean Democrat, 44.8% lean Republican). Church-going Mexican Catholics are still rather strongly in the Democratic camp as well.
Nobody will ever talk about Democrats’ abortion policies with regards to losing Protestants because Democrats couldn’t lose devout white Protestants over abortion because devout white Protestants never were Democrats to begin with – unlike devout Catholics who to this day trend considerably more Democratic than their Protestant peers.
That of course has to do with historical alignments based on location, class, ethnicity and so forth but it nevertheless makes devout Catholics a Democratic constituency in some areas. Of course there has already been a trend in this group away from their traditional Democratic home. Above numbers are from the 2000-2008 surveys, if you look at the same for 1972-1980 you find white church-going Catholics to be much more Democratic at the time: 62.5% lean Democratic and only 25.1% lean Republican. The embrace of socially liberal positions on part of the national Democratic Party has often been cited as a contributing reason to this trend away from Democrats amongst this demographic.
Therefore arguing that embrace of abortion rights has driven and is driving a certain constituency that traditionally had close ties to the Democratic Party away from the party seems perfectly legitimate.
Church-going Latinos are an interesting case here as they essentially split into a big Democratic bloc and independents with Republicans not really a factor – in spite of pro-life views being predominant. I suppose that is why some Republicans think they are in play as well and can be lured towards the GOP on social issues similarly as to how white Catholics have been. So far though it appears that other factors clearly trump any affinity Latinos may have with the GOP’s social stances.
I left blacks out of the whole issue because I figured they would somewhat distort the stats for Protestants as social views and religious devotion seem to have no notable effect on voting habits amongst this group – only 8% of pro-life blacks identify as Republican as opposed to 6.8% of pro-choice blacks.
In terms of electoral demographics I think blacks form a bloc of their own that every strategist will usually put into the D column without much further ado. White practicing Protestants tend to be strongly Republican-leaning and their “Evangelical” incarnation tends to be a safe GOP bet. White practicing Catholics however have tended to be a group in play but trending towards the GOP deviating from a century-old affinity towards the Democrats hence it’s something often discussed in political demographics and strategy.
Great points, Eoin. I would also like to add that England had no laws against homosexuality or sodomy while it was a Catholic country. It was Henry VIII who enacted the country’ first “anti-buggery” laws, largely as an anti-Catholic measure. Queen Mary I, the die-hard Catholic known as “Bloody Mary” for her persecution of Protestants, repealed the law. Queen Elizabeth I, who had a reputation for being a rather moderate Protestant leader, brought the law back. In turn, the homophobic buggery act spread throughout the world via the empire and are still on the books in many countries today. Arguably, the Church of England is responsible for more homophobic legislation on the books today than other other institution on earth. If England remained Catholic, it is quite likely that homosexuality would be legal in far more countries than it is today.
I can only speak from personal observation, but certainly in the northeast United States, and most particularly New England, white blue-collar ethnic Roman Catholics vote overwhelmingly for any Democratic candidate regardless of his or her support for abortion, gay marriage, divorce, or any of the other Roman Catholic proscriptions. If you look at the Democratic candidates for Kennedy’s senate seat, they’re all ethnic Catholics by birth, but they all strongly favor all the social policies a devout Catholic is supposed to disavow. Martha Coakley made it known in the strongest possible terms that she would fight any health reform bill that disallowed federally funded abortions.