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March 01, 2007

Republicans' Secular Problem

Bill Scher offers a very interesting perspective on the whole issue of the Democratic Party's relationship with Christianity. Citing a Pew Research Center exit poll from the 2006 midterm elections, he posits that Republicans' problem with secular beliefs is much greater than Democrats' problem with Christian beliefs.

Democrats crushed Republicans among secular voters, broadly defined as those who attend church seldom (favoring Democrats 60% to 38%) or never (67% to 30%). Republicans retained strong support among those who attend church more than weekly. But among those who only go weekly -- the larger portion of the religious vote -- the Republican lead shrunk from 15 points to 7.

In short, Republicans failed to be competitive among secular voters, while Democrats were at least competitive among regular churchgoers. And since the secular vote is roughly equal to the regular churchgoing vote, according to the last several national election exit polls, that means Republicans and their conservative base have a far bigger secular problem than their rivals have a religion problem.

Right-wing Christians have so shaped the discussion on this issue that for many of us, the idea that Republicans have a problem with seculars never occurred to us. They have spent so much time decrying the attacks on Christians by "liberals" that we have often overlooked the right's attacks on agnostics, atheists, and secular humanists. And if you really think about it, it would appear the right has been far more effective at pushing secularists into the closet than the handful of Christian-bashers have done at truly damaging Christians' freedom.

Scher offers what I see as a fairly insightful option that conservatives might consider if they want to make things right with seculars:

[H]ave some conservative politicians come out of the closet and announce they are atheists or agnostics. If it was clear that conservatism fully embraced religious diversity, including those who do not worship God, that would allay concerns that conservatism is about installing a soft theocracy.

But symbolism can only go so far. Ultimately, conservatives have to find a way to speak to the substantive concerns of secular voters: low wages, poor health care coverage, energy dependence, destabilizing foreign policy and the imposition of religious beliefs on others.

As Scher notes, this would be entirely contradictory to their fundamental philosophy of government and likely will not happen. But I think it's time we stopped giving them a pass on it.

Posted by Becky at March 1, 2007 09:52 AM