One of the problems here is terminology.
About 15% of people leaving polling places after an election report they are comfortable being identified as part of the "Christian Right" Some smaller subset of these people might be called the "hardcore religious right."
Not all Christian evangelicals vote Republican, and not all Christian evangelicals are conservative politically.
But in some recent posts and discussions, all of the following are conflated in a overcooked stew of bad research and worse analysis plus a whole lot of denial:
Here is % of U.S. population that are:
Christians (78%) Christian Evangelicals or "Born Again" (45%) (up from 35% in 1976) Conservative Christian Evangelicals (<>35%) Conservative Christian Evangelical Fundamentalists Conservative Christian Evangelical Fundamentalists (defined by actual theology) (<8%)
Voting:
Christian Right & Political Allies (45%) Christian Right Followers (15%) Christian Right Activists Hardcore Christian Right Activists Christian Right Leaders
"One study found that 40 percent of the total vote for Bush in 2000 came from Christian evangelicals, making it the largest single voting bloc in the Republican Party." http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v17n2/evangelical-demographics.html
So while regular church attendance and identification as Christian has declined, the % of Conservative Christian Evangelicals has gone up, and they are a powerful voting bloc.
And here is what I said about out-organizing them in the linked article:
"This shows that if we build truly democratic progressive coalitions that include Blacks and other people of color, labor union members and other wageworkers, women, people in LGBT communities, environmentalists, and progressive people of faith, we can consistently outvote the Christian Right."
-Chip Berlet
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From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org on behalf of Chuck0 Sent: Thu 7/7/2005 12:25 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Spirituality Up, Religion Down in America
B. wrote:
> Um, no, Chuck. More than 20% identify as GOP, but that
> doesn't mean there's a GOP party HQ "on every corner."
> It doesn't really work that way.
The GOP is not all religious right.
The size and power of the hardcore religious right is greatly exaggerated.
Chuck
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