On October 28th, The Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life hosted a panel discussion entitled “Do the Democrats Have a Religion Problem?” The event was moderated by BC law and theology professor M. Cathleen Kaveny. The panelists included Mark Silk, professor of religion and public life at Trinity College; Peter Skerry, political science professor at BC; and Michael Sean Winters, columnist for the National Catholic Reporter and correspondent for international Catholic weekly review The Tablet.
Kaveny began the discussion by providing the context for the event’s inquiry. She referenced U.S. Congressman Beto O’Rourke’s remarks at the “CNN Equality Town Hall” in which the former presidential candidate said he would strip churches, charities, and colleges of their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage. She also mentioned an analysis of tweets which found that 65% of Democratic presidential candidates did not use religious language on Twitter after the El Paso shooting massacre.
Mark Silk started the discussion by breaking the event’s question into two sub-queries. He posited that the first sub-question revolves around the electoral side of the broader issue: “Does the Democratic party have a problem winning the votes of religious citizens?”
Silk brought up the Democrats’ concern with the ‘God Gap’, or the likelihood a once-per-week churchgoer will vote Republican, which was 5 points in favor of Republicans in 1990, rose to 20 points in 2000, and remained steady through 2012.
Silk’s other sub-inquiry asked, “Does the Democratic party have a problem with religion per se, with religious ideas and values, [and] with guaranteeing and supporting religious liberty?”
Silk called the answer to this question a “mixed bag” and found “no problem” with the efforts of Democrats to help Muslims, support immigrants, and fight poverty. However, he saw certain social issues, especially LGBTQ rights and abortion, as the main reasons why Democrats struggle to find a proper response.
Next, Peter Skerry directly answered the talk’s main question with a “yes” and proceeded to note a 2018 Pew poll that found only 5% of Republicans considered themselves non-believers, defined as those who do not believe in God or a higher power, while 14% of Democrats consider themselves non-believers, clearly showing non-religious people a stronger non-religious identification within Democratic camp, respectively.
Michael Sean Winters gave his answer to the question of the hour directly, “No. White evangelicals have a religion problem. They have sold out large portions of the gospel in order to adhere to Donald Trump’s presidency, that’s a religion problem.” Winters continued, “The democrats have a political problem with religious voters, but that’s not the same thing as having a religion problem.”
Winters identified the unsuccessful candidacies of John Kerry, in 2004, and Hilary Clinton in 2016, both of whom he claimed were reluctant to speak about how their “faith informed their values,” as two examples of the effects of a lessening appeal of the Democratic party to religious voters.
Kaveny refocused the discussion on what the Democrats can do to fix their issues courting religious voters and their ideological divides between themselves and religious people.
Silk pointed out that many white Christian women are less fixed regarding the party they consistently vote for, compared to generally consistent Republican-voting, white religious men. He also identified Democrats’ efforts to protect abortion within the third-trimester, and their opposition to parental-consent laws, as deterrents to their political appeal with respect to religious people, implying that Democrats may want to change these policies to win those voters.
Skerry criticized many Democrats’ position on religion in politics, especially Catholic Democrats, which he likened to President John F. Kennedy’s stance in which his beliefs as a Catholic were arguably less influential when it comes to certain political issues, implying that shifting from this “opportunistic” mindset would be electorally beneficial.
Winters sees the Catholic Church and her American bishops as becoming increasingly more in ‘lock-step’ with conservative groups and a reason why Democrats no longer want to reach out to Catholic voters.
The event concluded with a half-hour Q&A where the topics of Israel and the Middle East, pro-lifers in the Democratic party and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were discussed.
Max Montana is a senior studying philosophy and theology. When not writing for The Torch, he enjoys reading more about the Catholic faith and philosophy, serving the unborn and mothers in need, and hanging out with friends. Max is honored to hail from the state with many gators and the bishop of the moon: Florida.
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