Posted on 08/28/2010 8:06:39 AM PDT by markomalley
A new survey examining religious believers’ approval ratings of President Obama shows that about 50 percent of Catholics approve of his presidency, down from 67 percent in his first six months in office. Catholics make up about 22 percent of the U.S. population.
The Gallup Poll survey found the president’s approval rating among non-Catholic Christians, who make up 55 percent of the U.S. population, had fallen from 58 percent to 43 percent. His already low approval among Mormon respondents, who represent about two percent of U.S. adults, fell from 43 percent to 26 percent
About 78 percent of Muslim respondents approved of the Obama presidency, down eight percentage points from when the question was first asked. Second to Muslims were atheists, agnostics, and members of other non-Christian religions, who comprise about 13 percent of the U.S. population. While about 75 percent of these respondents approved of President Obama at the start of his term, their approval declined to about 64 percent.
Jews were the religious group third likeliest to approve of President Obama, giving him 61 percent approval. This too is a decline: in January-June 2009, their approval rating of the president was 77 percent.
Overall, 48 percent of Americans approve of President Obama’s job, down from 63 percent in the first months of his presidency. Gallup claims that its survey of over 276,000 adults claims an overall margin of error of plus or minus one percent.
You are correct. Just under 50% of Catholics voted for Bush in 2000. Cultural Catholics in unions?
The best that I can tell, Catholics have only voted Republican six times in American history, five of those times have been for an already incumbent Republican running for reelection, and one of those six times is disputed by Gallup as going Republican, (1956).
None of those votes were by huge margins, 54% was the largest. Four of them were under Pope John II, and three of them were for Reagan or his veep during that period.
Five of the six times that Catholics voted Republican took place after boomers became old enough to vote.
The total Protestant vote has only gone Democrat in 1932, 1936, and 1964. The Protestant Hispanic vote is to the right of the total Catholic vote, going Bush by 56% in 2004 and for Obama by only 52% in 2008, (Total Catholic vote was Bush 52%-2004, and Obama 54%-2008) so I think that this is about more than a few union people.
Its never made sense to me why, as a group, Catholics have always tended to be liberals.
So perhaps the story of these statistics is that, since the 60s with the huge influx of Vietnamese and Hispanic Catholics, the Catholic vote is harder to predict, is split fairly evenly between conservatives and liberals, and is dependent on something other than moral ideology.
The most important element is that Catholics are pretty evenly divided between those who understand the moral choices here, faithfully and thoughtfully practice their religion, and understand the dogma of the Church- and those who are cultural Catholics, and are uniformed about the dogma and moral requirements of the the Church.
Add in the fact that a large block of Catholics never had the opportunity to exercise their rights as voters in a republic before and have recently arrived in this country. Some do not have much loyalty to American values yet and don’t understand America from a historical perspective.
Another large block of Catholics are cultural American Catholics who have never been properly catechized. They believe it is okay to pick and choose between the tenants of the Church. They refuse to be obedient to Catholic teaching. The Church needs to be stronger with them and invite them to accept Church teaching or stop calling themselves Catholics.
There are many children born here who now root against America in sports events. They can’t tell you who Thomas Jefferson is, despite many years of our public education. They do not speak English adequately, though they were born here. They have never been to a public library, a museum, a professional play or a classical music concert. Their parents don’t read to them and distrust America. When they show up for school, they expect to be educated without making any effort themselves. Many don’t even bring paper or pencils to school. They have very little interest in the current events in America and don’t think much about America.
They will be voting in two years.
I don’t understand you post, are you explaining why the Catholic vote has become more liberal since the 1960s, or more conservative since the 1960s?
I guess I’m explaining that the Catholic vote is two things:
Thinking, practicing Catholics vote conservative on most issues.
Cultural, poorly catechized Catholics vote liberal. They used to vote Democrat because they were union members and have a liberal’s understanding of social justice. Now they vote Democrat because the Democrat’s message of disdain for America strikes a chord with the new type of immigrant Catholic. Many new immigrants have no desire whatsoever to assimilate. They are loyal to their home countries and think America is no better than any other country.
If that makes you feel better, but it hardly explains the permanent, 170 year voting record of people that follow Catholicism.
Why would it make me feel better?
I wish every Catholic was well catechized, faithfully practicing, and on fire with zeal for Christ’s Church. Then none would have voted for Obama!
See post 40.
Post 40 shows 54% of Catholics voting for Obama, and 54% of Protestants voting for McCain, it shows Hispanic Protestants voting 52% for Obama and Hispanic Catholics voting 79% for Obama, what about it?
It shows less observant Catholics were almost evenly split and Hispanic Catholics overwhelmingly voted for Obama.
As I said, it was the unobservant or cultural Catholics and the Hispanic Catholics who voted for Obama. They all tend to be poorly educated about their Catholic faith and what it requires.
The Catholic vote has been very consistently liberal through American history including in 2008, the question is why?
It is true that after getting the 1965 immigration law passed and seeing it’s effects, that white, weekly attending Catholics have started voting more like Protestants, but they are only a niche, what about the other members of their Catholic church? What about the overall Catholic vote?
I think you have to put it in context. A vote for John Kennedy’s platform today would be a vote for a Republican platform. Kennedy would probably be considered a Republican today.
So back then, the “liberal” Catholic vote was still pretty conservative. They just tended to vote for Democrats, as I said before, due to unions mostly.
Now, with what used to pass for Democrat looking conservative when compared to the liberal Democratic party of today, we see that about half the Catholics tend to vote Democrat, which means liberal. I think it is because that half of the Catholic vote is uneducated about their faith, Catholic in name only but not truly practicing, and probably from a family of immigrants who never bought into the American dream or American ideals.
If this half of Catholics were faithful to the Church teaching and truly living it, they would vote conservative on almost every issue. The right to life trumps almost everything. Our pastors made it pretty clear during the last election that we should never vote for anything, or anyone, that interferes with the right to life. They talked about it for several weeks and even printed up a Catholic Voter Handbook that explains the Church’s stance on current issues. Unfortunately, they were preaching to the choir.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.