This is a highly unscientific attempt to see what the readers of this blog think. Actually, I am curious about the correlation between religious affiliation and political affiliation. During a coffee shop discussion yesterday, I discussed American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
This may be a flop due to small sample size, but let’s have a go of it. If meaningful results are obtained, I will publish and we can have a discussion. To increase sample size, please forward to your friends.
UPDATE WITH RESULTS:
Guess what? The readership of Spirit of a Liberal blog tends to be liberal. That’s hardly shocking, but I am a bit surprised at how overwhelming that proved to be in this survey. Here are key results:
76 % ELCA. No other denomination had more than 3%
An even split between clergy and laity when seminarians were considered clergy.
63% Democrat, 31% independent, 6% Republican
67% male, 33% female
67% age 45 or older
Support gay clergy 80%, against gay clergy 11%, conflicted opinion 9%
Support marriage equality 76%, support civil unions but not right to marry, 19%, against both gay marriage and civil unions 3%, conflicted 2%
I think this last finding is the most revealing. Even for those who said they were against gay clergy, 70% supported either gay marriage or civil unions. Similarly, self-identified Republicans supported either gay marriage or civil unions by 80% to 20%.
Add a comment if you have more specific questions. The poll remains open for now so go ahead and take the survey if you haven’t yet done so.
I think you are on the right track here Obie. I have thought that the Reagan Young Republicans may be the conservatives of today. I do think that the TV preachers and the conservative radio broadcasters have shaped a lot of the conservative rhetoric. When things are bad– there is always someone blamed whether they did any thing to warrant the blame or not. This is human nature .
My kids have a gay friend who was “married” by a Lutheran pastor. My daughter went to the wedding but was not comfortable with the idea of “marriage”. We do go along with civil rights and civil unions for such things as insurance and even inheritance. Beyond that, I would like to suggest that in this day of low pay for young people just starting out and for women who are supporting families but can’t get more than low pay, that insurance benefits be extended to adult children who have moved back home and for adult relatives living together in a household. I would even extend the domestic partnership to heterosexual couples living together so they can get insurance benefits. This has happened in some places and I think it would be beneficial to combined families who for one reason or another don’t want to or can’t afford the “wedding”. This is probably another “sin” but in tough economic times, things need to be done differently.
@Lilly
I think we need to be careful when we say that the “tough economic times” might justify that “things need to be done differently.” Prosperity or recession – sin is sin.
That said, how is allowing people to live together who are not married a sin? I think that even the traditionalists (at least not the “moderate” ones) wouldn’t balk at that. The way I understand it, it’s the conferring of blessing/special recognition as well as the sexual activities associated with an intimate relationship that is at issue here. Just living together (possibly as roommates/friends) doesn’t constitute a sin. If you think I’m wrong, I’d be happy to hear why you think so.
What I am saying here is that I think some insurance benefits could be extended to families where the grown children have moved back in and now are in the same household as their parents. In a couple of cities in Wisconsin, heterosexual couples who don’t wish to marry are allowed to apply for domestic partnership insurance benefits. So rather than stopping at benefits for GLBTQ partners why not extend this type of benefit to other kinds of families. For instance, my sister has a grown daughter who lived with them until they went to the nursing home. She had to have her own insurance. Of course , maybe that was because they were on medicare but how nice it would be if they could all continue to be covered as a family even though the woman is an adult. My bachelor brother lived with my parents and took care of them until he died. He had his own insurance . Of course single rate premiums are usually less than family but then again– couldn’t it all be covered under one policy ? All I am saying is that there may be other people out there who are falling through the cracks that could be helped by some creative legislation. That said– yes there are lots of couples in our area who are living with a boyfriend or girlfriend in a sexual relationship. In this area it is still considered sin. They don’t get married because they have been married and have children who go to see the other parent. They don’t get married because there is debt and deceit from the first marriage. Why couldn’t they be domestic partners for some benefits?
According to scripture, Jesus had a lot more to say about divorce than who should be married to whom. We should remember that marriage is an institution that long predates Christianity and that marraige wasn’t encouraged among Christians at first, at least by St. Paul. Things changed then and they are still changing now. Marriage was adopted by Christianity because it was a model for a relationship at least theoretically based on love, where the one was to be more concerned about the welfare of the other than the self. I don’t see how that has changed, regardless of who is married to whom.
@Gregory West
Of course in Biblical interpretation , you are right. However, I am noting that the people who are living together often don’t go to church and/or have otherwise more or less rejected the 2000 yr. old rules. Do Biblical rules apply to civil law ? Not necessarily , if we have separation of church and state. So is it justice to deny coverage to children born out of wedlock ? In Wisconsin, some don’t marry because of welfare benefits. Some don’t marry because of cost of the wedding. I am a Lutheran Christian and I worry about these things when they are applied to family members. I am not in a position to do much about them.
Obie,
It’s hardly surprising that a blog called “Spirit of a Liberal” has a liberal audience, and is in favor of liberal causes. For my own purposes, I still haven’t figured out if you intend the liberal part to refer to your religious affiliation or political affiliation. That also seems to be part of the conclusion of the authors of American Grace.
I’ve been reading “American Grace” bit by bit . 600 pages take a while to digest. I find the book interesting and informative. I see “The Lutheran ” has a review of it too. I recommend it to anyone who wants to find out what has happened in religion in the last 50 years and where it appears to be headed. When 30% of the surveyed population are evangelicals, is it any wonder that we have so much conservative rhetoric ?