President Obama made two decisions that may come back to haunt him if he loses the election: (1) supporting same-sex marriage and (2) mandating that Catholic organizations cover contraception, morning after pills, etc.
While those decisions may have popular support … especially with the Democratic base … they have also riled up religious factions … and not just those on the far right.
Let’s put the morality of those two decisions aside, and just look at the politics.
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Same-sex Marriage
First, a Pew poll reported by the Daily Caller suggests that Obama’s support for gay marriage didn’t win Obama many votes in the gay community … largely because he pretty much owned that group even with a wishy-washy position.
- “President Barack Obama has barely moved the needle among the small percentage of voters who are gay or lesbian, despite his public support for lifting curbs on open homosexuality in the military and revamping marriage to include same-sex couples.”
- “A Pew poll … found that only 3.4 percent declare themselves to be sexual minorities … 71% of gays or lesbians who are registered voters support Obama, 22% say they’ll vote for Romney. That’s a very small drop from the 2004 and 2008 elections, when three out of four self-identified lesbians or gays voted for the Democratic candidate … In 2004, Kerry got 77% percent of the vote.
Obama may have gained some votes from non-gays who support the same-sex marriage cause, but those votes are likely to be offset by lost votes among conservative religious groups.
For example, in June, a group of black pastors launched an anti-Obama campaign centered around the gay marriage decision and its potential impact on families.
According to CNN: A group of conservative black pastors are responding to President Barack Obama’s support of same-sex marriage with what they say will be a national campaign aimed at rallying black Americans to rethink their overwhelming support of the President … The Rev. Williams Owens, who is president and founder of the Coalition of African-Americans Pastors and the leader of the campaign, has highlighted opposition to same-sex marriage among African-Americans. He calls this campaign “an effort to save the family” … “The time has come for a broad-based assault against the powers that be that want to change our culture
The effort hasn’t gotten much press lately, and probably hasn’t gotten much traction.
Obama still has near total support among blacks.
But, lump the same-sex marriage support with the contraception mandate and there may be a bigger blowback among religious groups.
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Evangelicals
The WSJ reports that Romney’s support has surged among evangelicals.
The Southern Baptist Convention has endorsed him, the Faith and Freedom Coalition has been stumping for him, and evangelical Christian leader Rick Warren didn’t hold presidential election interviews like he did with John McCain & Barack “Above my pay grade” Obama. More generally …
The president of Ohio Christian University, Mark A. Smith, says, “The intensity of voters in the faith community is as high as I’ve seen it in the last 12 years.
“The driver of that intensity is religious liberty. We took a direct hit with the Affordable Care Act,” he says.
Evangelicals watched the Obama administration’s big public fight with Catholic hospitals and charities.
What they concluded is that the health-care law was a direct threat to their own private outreach programs.
In the 2008 presidential vote, evangelicals were 31% in Iowa,26% in Wisconsin and 30% of the vote in Ohio.
It’s estimated that in 2008 there were 350,000 evangelicals who didn’t vote in Ohio.
They could be a determining factor this year if evangelicals are, in fact, galvanized and motivated to flock to the polls.
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Catholics
And, there’s the Catholic factor.
In 2008, Obama won 54% of the Catholic vote.
But, Pew reports that there’s been a 9-point swing in Catholic voters toward the GOP since 2008.
Since Catholics are 1/4 of the U.S. population … that’s a 2% swing in the electorate … a shift that could be a big deal.
While Catholics are split – largely balancing social justice with right-to-life – and while a majority of Catholics reported;y to favor contraception … the contraception insurance mandate was a proverbial stick in the eye to church officials who railed against it as a violation of religious rights.
That view seems to have gained some traction.
According to Pew, Catholics are hearing a lot from the pulpit about abortion and religious liberty.
Bishops around the country have been having letters read to parishioners, reminding them of Catholic values.
For example, the Bishop of Green Bay recently issued a pastoral letter saying that “voting for candidates whose positions contradict any so-called “non-negotiables” of Catholic teaching “could put [one’s] soul in jeopardy.”
Apparently the Bishop has had some impact since Obama is making a campaign stop in Green Bay this week … likely to either settle things down a bit or stick the Bishop in the eye.
And, it appears that some Catholic groups are rising up.
Our local church staged a Fortnighi to Freedom rally … reminding parishioners that the Feds are stepping in to dictate actions and restrict religious liberty.
And, some Catholic lay groups have produced slick ads that are starting to go viral.
Here’s one called “Test of Fire”.
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Mormons
Finally, you may have heard that Mitt Romney is a Mormon.
Early on, pundits said that Americans generally and Evangelicals wouldn’t vote for a Mormon President.
That doesn’t seem to be the case … though I still expect some anti-Mormon chatter in the final days of the campaign.
The bigger point is that, according to Pew, Mormons are the religious group most skewed towards Republican.
There are over 6 million Mormons in the U.S. … expect them to vote as a bloc and to be out in force to to bolster Romney’s get-out-the-vote efforts.
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Bottom line
When the dust settles, I’m betting that the religious groups – mobilized Evangelicals, “poked” Catholics and zealous Mormons – will largely determine the election outcome.
We’ll see.
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