Joe Biden Likes to Go to Church
Saint Joseph on the Brandywine Catholic Church in Wilmington, Delaware. President Joe Biden frequently attends service here and his son, wife, and infant daughter are all buried in the church’s cemetary.
The Democratic Party is in a current panic about its electoral prospects. Every day brings a new exhortation for some Democratic to take action to improve the party’s image and ability to run the country. Democrats are currently pushing Joe Biden to do whatever he can to improve inflation and the nation’s infant formula shortage. They are also focused on the upcoming public hearings over the January 6th attack on the Capitol. The hope is that these events will provide a contrast: effective, responsive Democratic leadership compared with craven, lawless Republican debauchery.
The party is understandably trying to find anything that it can do to bolster its current president. Democrats want Joe Biden to take action on a number of different fronts to solve the nation’s problems. But they have been mostly silent on another opportunity that Biden has to change the narrative about his personal beliefs and his role in the American political system.
One factor that has not been discussed lately has been Joe Biden’s regular church attendance. All 46 presidents have been members of a church and have occasionally visited. But the previous two presidents rarely attended regular services. Donald Trump’s attachment to his church and religion was tenuous at best. Most political observers are aware that their candidates profess a certain religion and are part of a particular church. But the idea that Biden’s actions back up his professed beliefs could play an important role in the party’s messaging for the next two years.
Joe Biden has been known for his staunch Catholicism since he was elected senator in the 1970s. He has mentioned it in times of personal tragedy and in speeches meant to reassure and heal the nation. Biden’s religion led him to take a position to the right of parts of his own party on some issues. It was also a reason why his support of same-sex marriage in 2012 was so influential, both to the nation and to then-president Barack Obama.
However, Biden’s church attendance has been mostly ignored in the past year. Democrats simply have not talked about it since the election. There have been almost no major news segments or widely disseminated podcasts about it. Neither Pod Save America nor Rachel Maddow has devoted segments to it. Ron Klain, White House Chief of Staff, has not tweeted about Biden’s religion during his presidency. Almost all news coverage about the president’s religion in the past year has focused on whether or not some priests could deny him communion for his pro-choice stance.
Biden’s attendance at church is mostly ignored by Democrats for a number of reasons. The first is the obvious, moral explanation. As the heirs of Thomas Jefferson, many Democrats do not believe a president’s religious views should influence how they govern the country. Those views are seen as private. A president should be enacting policies separately and apart from their own personal beliefs. Another fear is that a Catholic president who focuses on their Catholicism may alienate other members of the religiously diverse coalition that Democrats need to hold together. Biden has upheld the privacy of personal religious belief in his public comments about candidates’ religions. For instance, he once said in 2012 regarding Mitt Romney’s religion, “I don’t think it’s anybody’s business… nor do I think it should matter to anyone.”
But another key reason for Democrats ignoring the president’s religion is the power of the non-religious in the leadership of the Democratic Party. Observers have noted the growth of atheism and the decline of church attendance throughout the country. This trend is strongest among the well-educated, urban liberals and leftists who serve as pundits, activists, consultants, and staffers within the party. These men and women simply do not think about religion in positive terms on a regular basis. When they do think of religion, they focus on fundamentalist interpretations of religion, which are more poisonous than ever following the likely overturning of Roe v. Wade. This group would not think of Biden focusing on his religion as a positive in any way, shape, or form.
No matter the reason, Democrats must fix this glaring omission in the way they talk about Joe Biden. The professionals who dominate the party may not care about how many times Joe Biden attends church. But tens of millions of Americans, many of them soft partisans and swing voters, do care. Several swing states are some of the 20 most religious in the country according to Pew Research, including North Carolina (10th), Virginia (14th), Ohio (17th), and Iowa (19th). The relatively close election returns in these states suggest that not all religious voters are entirely under the sway of former-president Trump. For instance, in 2016, 65% of voters in North Carolina rated themselves as “highly religious.” That year, Trump won the state with 49.83% of the vote. The “highly religious” are not a monolith, and there is certainly a chance that a candidate who emphasized their religion often could make more of an inroads with them.
Furthermore, a religious emphasis would have an infinitesimal downside to Democratic voters. The Republican Party has established itself as a party devoted to racial grievance, extreme economic policies, and waging the culture war. These values are utterly anathema to much of the Democratic Party’s urban, nonreligious base. They are the leading edge of political polarization on the left and are as devoted to voting Democratic as anyone else. Democrats would lose few atheists if they decided to draw attention to the religion of their leaders.
A focus on Biden’s religion could even help to change the impression of religion among atheists and the non-religious. One of the main reasons for declining church membership is the association of religion with revanchist social policies. Biden’s religion is more liberal, tolerant, and open-minded than the standard caricature of religion. A greater focus on the president’s religion outside of the quadrennial election year could help the Democratic Party take better advantage of this enormously powerful force in American political life.
Democrats are always looking for something new that will shake them out of what looks to be structural electoral purgatory. They want to reach out to conservatives and moderates in rural areas without compromising their values and the morality of their stance on social issues. The idea of becoming a more religious party, one that emphasizes the church attendance of its leader while also upholding a liberal approach to religion, is a possibility that activists and party leaders rarely talk about. With Joe Biden, hopefully that tendency will change.
I think this has been tried occasionally and hasn’t worked.
Theists (believers) are collectively on every side of every issue. They seriously don’t like admitting that so they don’t. They group together everyone who believes in anything and pretend that they all are the same. That doesn’t come close to the reality.
As much as they like to proclaim “belief in god is important”, what they really mean is “belief in their specific god is important”. Or more exactly, “believing exactly what I believe on all the issues is important”.
The voters who vote religion are mostly the fundies/anti-abortion crowd. A religiously motivated anti-abortion voter is going to give zero credit to someone else’s faith because that other person is wrong and thus their faith is wrong.Report
Eric, believe me when I tell you, yet another hollow gesture of performativeness over substance, meant to manipulate voters into thinking someone who is clearly not on their side, is “really just exactly like them deep down inside” will only hurt Democrats. Y’all are not going to con job any conservatives into thinking Biden is suddenly a religious person because they know what the Democrats stand for and I don’t see you guys changing that any time soon. Thus this approach would simply come off disingenuous and manipulative to the religious right and downright traitorous to most leftists, particularly younger voters, who actually delight in being anti-religious.
You painted yourselves into a corner catering to the weirdest of the weird. Sending Grandpa Joe to church is nothing more than flim-flam and it won’t erase reality.Report
And this is kicking in right around the time that Pelosi is getting denied communion.
Biden’s going to church? Hey! This is a great opportunity to discuss non-profit tax breaks!Report
You are way off base here.
Liberal/Democratic voting Catholics are very much as they say ‘a thing.’ Unlike the OP I don’t see a lot of electoral upside to making Biden’s religion a point of emphasis. But all evidence is that he has been practicing his whole life and there’s no reason to think it is disingenuous.Report
As I say below, it [his Catholicism] isn’t disingenuous, but your key point is that it isn’t any meaningful electoral upside to his sort of Lib/Dem Catholicism.
It isn’t the sort of Catholicism that animates younger liberal voters and it isn’t the sort of Catholicism that motivates immigrant Catholicism. It’s idiosyncratic US Boomer Catholicism and, while sincere, it is basically dead or dying… it certainly isn’t reproducing.
So I think Kristen is largely correct… Biden’s Catholicism won’t help the Dems, but a different sort of Catholicism might change the Dems.
*in moderationReport
I’m objecting (strenuously) to her characterization of his own religious practice as insincere, not because I think there’s any sort of religious voting bloc that’s going to be awakened to help Democrats win elections.
It was IMO a pretty nasty remark. Not to mention quite hypocritical for someone willing to throw in with a political party still making hay here and there off the shallowest and most vulgar forms of Protestantism out there in the American ecosystem.Report
I see, I was looking more at the ‘performativeness’ of the DNC pivoting to highlight Biden’s Catholicism – which I agree would come across as insincere. But otherwise, my comments on what type of Catholic I think Biden represents are pretty clear.Report
I agree with you on the basics of what he represents, but I don’t think it’s quite as dead as you do. Or at least I don’t think it’s specifically dead so much as part of the ongoing decline of religion in the country more broadly. Anyway there are plenty of children at the 2 churches I go in and out of and don’t get a sense of a strong political undercurrent of any kind at either of them. Not anymore than I did in the boomer version of the Church I grew up in anyway, which for as conservative as my parish could be, still adhered to the truce on partisan politics.
But to your comment below, while I enjoy reading the Bruenig perspective I think it itself is idiosyncratic and unlikely to become a basis for a meaningful voting bloc. I think the reality is that a political Catholic bloc died with the assimilation of the Irish and Italians and other white ethnics. To the extent a bloc still exists I think the probable end of Roe is going to make it even weaker by eliminating the last big political rallying point. Maybe I’m misinterpreting you but I don’t see a rebirth coming.Report
Well, I agree that E.Bruenig’s (un-)reconstructed 70’s socialism is highly idiosyncratic. The whole RadTrad thing is idiosyncratic… but there’s more crossover among RadTrads and Trads than there is with Boomer catholicism.
And I’m agreeing that Political Catholicism a’la the John Courtney Murray project is the thing that is not reproducing… the ‘cultural’ catholic is a gateway to non-Catholic.
So in that sense, it’s true, the Culturally Catholic Church in America is trending smaller which goes back to the original post… what is to be gained by appealing to a sort of non-denominational-culturally-American-Catholicism?
I mean, re-read Cuomo from 1984 — I was at Notre Dame in ’86 and can remember the tension balanced by hope that it ‘just might work.’ For the political philosopher in me, it’s really interesting taking Cuomo at his word (sincerity!) in 1984 only to realize that his project – by his own standards – failed as of 2022. Biden doesn’t even mouth the Cuomo platitudes anymore.Report
I just read it, and a few quibbles aside, it spoke to me (because of course it would :)) but I’m forced to agree with you on the outcome.
However I’m also struggling with why I think it has played out that way. Is it that the case he made couldn’t be sustained on its merits or just the forces of American assimilation at work that he also references? I have to think it’s more about the latter, and less about the relationship individuals have with their personal politics whatever part of the doctrine. Maybe the cornerstone was never belief but ethnic solidarity and when that stopped being necessary a lot of people (and not just the laity for that matter) lost the script.
So to the extent I have any sort of counterpoint, and I’m not sure I do, it’s that the case is still persuasive, if in need of some updating, but people have to care to make it. I don’t see how a smaller, purer Church and laity ever reverses the trend. At best it’s a temporary mask on the slow death spiral that maybe lets the next generation or two of conservative bishops die under the false pretense that they haven’t failed in their stewardship just as badly. I know there’s occasional talk of the developing world, but the developing world ain’t going to be developing forever. Sooner or later the same forces in play in the West will come there too.
Anyway just a long winded lamentation and a hope that someone, somewhere picks up the ball.Report
I think this goes back to a lack of a limiting principle. A position without a limiting principle has nothing to keep it from sliding down a slope.Report
I think it depends on what you think is causing participation to decline. I’m sure there are people out there who have left over the specific matter of the Church’s stance on abortion and other reproductive matters. But I think we can also fairly deduce that there are plenty of people who make peace with it in some way, including by ignoring it.
It also isn’t like this is unique to Catholicism. Mainline Protestantism is dealing with similar problems despite some sects being more flexible on these particular subjects.Report
You’re not following the logic.
1) Following Religion brings peace. If everyone were to have faith then all conflicts would be resolved.
2) Because everyone will agree with me and mine on the big dividing issues.
3) Joe doesn’t agree with me on the big dividing issues.
Conclusion: Either he’s insincere or religion doesn’t bring peace (can’t be).Report
I almost forgot to say what an interesting comment this was, one of the most interesting I’ve seen in ages.Report
KD thinks anything any Democratic voter or politician does is disingenuous.Report
I don’t think Biden is any less sincere than I am when he goes to church. If I were his pastor, bishop, or pope, I’d be having some talks with him aimed at correction, but that’s a different subject.
The question is whether there’s anything cynical about Biden’s staff playing up his faith, and of course there is, or at least it’s as cynical as anything else that gets done to curry voter favor. It wouldn’t be aimed at conservatives though. It would be for the moderate voter who doesn’t have anything against religion and is willing to be inspired by hearing someone talk about his principles. Where I disagree with Eric is that I see the left playing this card every chance they get. We don’t talk about it much on this site because it’s often targeted at blacks and rural whites. But the left’s willingness to judge people on the basis of religious standards is right up there with the worst of the choir ladies. I mean, so far, the most judgmental comments have come from the thread’s most right and left.Report
It is amazing that conservatives have convinced themselves that there are two kinds of people, religious people and non-conservatives.
It is even more amazing given how deeply, and unapologetically cruel and hateful so much of American conservatism is.Report
“It is amazing that conservatives have convinced themselves that there are two kinds of people, religious people and non-conservatives.”
There are. That’s a true statement.
Not all conservatives are Republican.Report
Now, I’m an atheist, and not a liberal, so I’m mostly observing from the outside, and I do know some Evangelicals (with a capital E) who are mostly socially conservative (oppose gay marriage and legal abortion, say) but vote Democrat mostly, so I know not all conservatives (and not all conservative Christians) vote Republican. That said, I’ve been to churches, mostly mainline Protestant, where I think anyone who might reasonably called conservative would be as uncomfortable as anyone who isn’t conservative would at many Christian right churches. The people at those, for lack of a better word, liberal churches seem to be as earnestly and faithfully Christian as any of the conservative Christians I’ve known, if not significantly more so.
Or perhaps you mean “conservative” in a broader sense (you know, being guided by a book that was written a couple millennia ago or so is pretty conservative), in which case, sure, whatever man.Report
By the way, the Protestants of non-mainline sorts (Evangelicals, Southern Baptists and Southern Methodists, Church of Christ, Nazarenes, etc.) who vote Democrat, and are open about it, are not infrequently shunned, and told they’re not Christians, by their co-religionists, often by people with whom they’ve gone to church for years, and may even have considered friends. I saw a lot of this during the 2016 presidential, and it will forever taint my already deeply unfavorable view of the Christian right.
It’s funny, my mother, a devout Evangelical who votes Democrat (mostly) will swear up and down that this is not the real spirit of her breed of Christianity, calls it sinful behavior, and will often say when her co-religionists get all hateful that “satan is alive and well.”
Oh, and there’s even a book about this stuff, by a very different Kristin:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZTSVLX3/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1Report
You’re conflating “conservative” with “social right-wing”.
Don’t do that.
You’re conflating “religious” with “strict adherence to right-wing American interpretation of Christian dogma”.
Don’t do that.Report
As I mentioned above, if you’re referring to “conservative” in a broader sense, sure, whatever man, you know that’s not what I was talking about, and I’m not interested in silly word games.Report
“not interested in silly word games” says the corncob who not three comments about was talking about “Evangelicals (with a capital E)”.Report
Yeah, I’m intentionally distinguishing Evangelicals proper from the broader concept of evangelicals/evangelicalism, the latter of which is not limited to the Christian right. If you’ve ever had these conversations with people who consider themselves to be part of the evangelical Christian tradition (which spans many denominations and some non-denominational churches), but who are not part of the American Evangelical movement (which is something more specific, though people in several denominations, and even some conservative Catholics these days, may consider themselves fellow travelers), then I don’t know what to tell ya. I’m just trying to avoid offending folks who consider themselves evangelical Christians but not Evangelicals. It’s not a word game, it’s trying to be precise. Unlike what you’re doing, which is pretending you didn’t know what I meant by “conservative” and changing the subject.
Anyway, going back to ignoring you. Like on Twitter, I always regret unmuting people I’ve muted. Have a good one.Report
“I’m intentionally distinguishing Evangelicals proper from the broader concept of evangelicals/evangelicalism…”
Remind me; which of us is Playing Silly Word Games, again?
“Anyway, going back to ignoring you.”
Awww, ignore me? You clearly get a lot of egoboo from thinking that you’re the smart one in this conversation. Why deny yourself that dopamine?Report
The two groups are “people interested in forcing their religious ethics/beliefs on others” and everyone else.
The first group is a major player (but hardly the only player) in the GOP. The second group is either not-religious or doesn’t vote on their religion. Not voting on their religion is the same as not existing from a political point of view.
Scoring religious points with people who don’t vote on their religion is a waste of time. Similarly announcing that your ethics don’t match those which a group is interested in forcing on society.Report
The second group is either not-religious or doesn’t vote on their religion.
This is effectively saying the same thing that Kristin is saying: you either vote conservative, or you’re either not Christian or are not voting like one.
Most of the liberal/progressive Christians I’ve known certainly seem to think they’re voting their religion. They just think their religion says something very different about how they should vote that conservative Christians do. The only way you might believe they’re not voting their religion is if you believe their version of Christianity is invalid, which, of course, most of the Christian right does.Report
“The only way you might believe they’re not voting their religion is if you believe their version of Christianity is invalid, which, of course, most of the Christian right does.”
Not really. There are about as many right-wing Christians who think that left-wing Christians aren’t really Christian as vice versa. Most conservative Christians just think that left-wing Christians are dumb.Report
“Not really,” followed by saying the same thing I just said, is odd.
In my experience, the difference between “left-wing Christians” and the Christian right is that the former believe the latter are bad Christians, and the latter believe the former aren’t Christians at all. I’ve been told as much many, many times by folks in the Christian right, for decades now.Report
By the way, one of the big differences between the Christian, er, “left,” and the Christian right, in my experience, is the willingness to turn on their own. My parents’ former minister (now retired, at least from regular preachin’) was one of the authors and of course signatories of the famed Nasvhille Statement, which I mention only to make clear that this dude is in no way a liberal, much less a progressive. Yet, he has regularly been critical of recent political trends among Evangelicals (which is to say, Trump and Trumpism), though usually obliquely, and always through scripture. The result has been many on the Christian right, including some of his former church members, turning on him and frequently accusing him of not being a true Christian. It’s been wild to watch.
I’ve never seen this happen among the “Christian left.” I’ve seen a lot of disputes between various folks on that side of the church aisle, but I’ve never seen them reach the level at which people are accusing each other of not being real Christians.Report
“I’ve never seen this happen among the “Christian left.” ”
what about–
“oh, him? Well, he wasn’t kicked out, he just decided that he didn’t really fit with our congregation.”Report
Imagining a picket line of radical Unitarians chanting “We Demand You Do What You Want!”Report
Again, this is the Pinky Rule in action. What Pinky happens not to know — or what he wishes to claim he does not know — he confidently asserts does not exist.Report
One of us misread the other. If you’re playing games with phrasing maybe I didn’t follow it. If I phrased my part badly, that’s on me.
But I’m saying you’re as likely to find a RW Christian who thinks that LW Christians aren’t really Christian as to find a LW Christian who thinks that RW Christians aren’t really Christian.Report
And I’m saying that, in particular, is not true. I’m not saying that no mainline protestant has thought that right-wing Christians aren’t real Christians. I have seen people say that. But more often I’ve seen them say that right-wing Christians are bad Christians, or misguided ones, or whatever, not that they’re not Christian at all, whereas right-wing Christians regularly say that non-conservative Christians aren’t Christians at all. Hell, this subthread began with one doing so:
Y’all are not going to con job any conservatives into thinking Biden is suddenly a religious person because they know what the Democrats stand for Report
Barring sound data, we can only comment on what we’ve seen. Then again, I don’t know what Kristin or Chip profess. So maybe a lot of the LW “not a real Christian” accusations against the RW are coming from LW non-Christians?
I do hate the “not a real Christian” accusation though. One of our only family fights occurred after someone made a comment like that about Obama.Report
I think the specific “not a true X” argument is more naturally an accusation from the conservative side — i.e. there was a prior understanding about what qualified one as a member of the class, “conservatives” largely retain that understanding while “liberals” seek to expand it, so the accusation about not meeting the requirements for membership is a poor fit for the latter. Those on the liberal side certainly have plenty of other sorts of accusations to choose from though.Report
Such discussions ultimately led my parents to leave their church (though it took them a few years, and their fellow churchgoers response to the pandemic, to really push them out).
It’s funny, because my parents’ church is part of a (global, though mostly U.S. of course) network of church’s that tout themselves as apolitical, gospel-based churches, and openly preach about not letting political disagreements get in between fellow worshipers. What are ya gonna do?
Neither here nor there, but many years ago, when I was friends with many fundamentalists and fellow travelers of fundamentalists, the two big political issues they cared about were abortion, of course, and creationism, and they were as likely to accuse someone of not being a real Christian for the latter as the former. I feel like things have really changed on the Christian right, and somehow, despite how completely awful I thought their politics were back then, they’ve managed to get worse.Report
This would be me. Definitely me.Report
That’s not true.
The second group, which I remind people _I_ am in, take our religion and attempt to create and vote using some sort of ethical framework that is not reliant on citing a bunch of things out-of-context, or even just making up things, from a book that actually has almost nothing to say about them.
The problem is certain religious groups have made deals with the devil and have given up any sort of ethos for political power, and then have been VERY LOUD about how they are religious and ‘their religion’ requires them to, I dunno, build a wall and keep out Mexicans.Report
Please explain what you find performative about Joe Biden’s practice of his faith.
Please explain why you see Democratic policies as opposed to Christ’s teachings in the 4 Gospels.Report
I recognize Biden as a co-religionist… in a sense we’re all bad Catholics. But the reasons Biden isn’t getting any sort of religious or catholic cred has a lot of vectors.
First, as you note, it isn’t simply that the Dems are increasingly irreligious at the leadership level, it’s that they already positioned Biden’s ‘Staunch Catholicism’ as the reason he held various bad positions in his political career – whether they were related to his Catholicism or not. Which is to say they had to ‘launder’ him into a proper NextGen Liberal by talking about his Catholic biases as something he overcame.
Second, he’s a real-life example of how the ‘personally opposed’ position to Abortion that Mario Cuomo laid out in his 1984 speech at Notre Dame was unable able to hold as an ethical position within the Democratic party nor did it provide a foundation for a ‘different’ approach to abortion that this faction thought they could pioneer: to attack the root causes and make abortion ‘go away’. Rare to the point of in extremis This latter aspect eventually migrated to the core pro-life (catholic) position which has per force become non-Blue.
Third, like Cuomo, he and Pelosi (and Pope Francis, for what it’s worth) represent a sort of dead cat bounce to a boomer Catholicism that hasn’t reproduced itself. Young Catholics who are also liberal tend to be much more radical on life issues as well as economic issues. OT Alum Elizabeth Bruenig is a better sign-post of where younger RadTrads, LeftCaths, and Catholics who are practicing their faith are… Biden isn’t there (even if their economics and cultural interests put them on team blue). Which is to say, Biden is something they tolerate, like your uncle at Thanksgiving… not someone you follow or expect to lead – precisely because he’s aged out/phased out of his Cuomo positions in pursuit of Dem leadership acceptance.
A twitter commenter had a good observation on what the high-water mark of ‘former’ Biden or what Catholic ‘Cuomo’ Biden might look like, it would look like Bill Clinton
As Kristen says above, it’s not possible to un-launder Biden through a religious lens unless he also abandons the Dem Leadership positions he sold his former self for to access the highest office. Or put another way, Biden *can’t* baptize the Dem Leadership positions — he doesn’t have the charisma, energy, credibility or right policies for it.
Best you could possibly hope for would be a elderly boomer trying to sell a stale ‘safe, legal, and rare’ policy that was abandoned in the aughts.Report
Every now and again, “political realism” makes a comeback for about 20 minutes. This weird acknowledgment that, hey, sometimes you have to make compromises to keep the machine oiled. Not merely “we don’t have to win every single battle today” but also “maybe we don’t have to win every single battle eventually so long as we win the war”.
And it tends to die out again when enough people ask “why shouldn’t we win every single battle? Are you opposed to us winning battles?” and the like.
But, after enough losses, realism tends to show up again and says stuff like “maybe we don’t have to win every single battle ASAP?”Report
The interesting thing is that the Murray position was a sort of Catholic realist position. The topic of dissertations is whether he got Liberalism right or not, because his assumptions about a shared epistemic reality haven’t aged will since 1960.Report
“Safe, Legal, and Rare”, as compromises go, strikes me as a pretty good one.
“Hey, we agree that this has enough moral content to be ‘problematic’, as the kids say, but it should be safe and legal!”
But, of course, that makes nobody who really, really cares about it happy. Moral content? HOW DARE YOU? That’s an obvious set-up for making it illegal! It’s like removing a skin tag!
And the other side yelling “Safe? SAFE FOR WHOM? I ASSURE YOU THAT IT IS NOT SAFE FOR THE GESTATING HUMAN! And, let’s face it, it ain’t gonna be ‘rare’. It’s going to be ‘common’. So of course we should have the police shoot dogs over this issue.”
And all of the people who make up the whole “it should be legal in the first trimester but I’ve got some serious problems with the third trimester” find themselves having to pick which epistemic corner they find less shrill (even as they want something in what used to be in a place where there was *SOME* overlap, even if it was just a little).Report
There was a Ross Douthat NYT opinion I came across a few months ago about the legalization of gambling across the country. One of the points he raised was the loss of our ability as a society to manage some moral inconsistency that can seem kind of unprincipled on its face but nevertheless operates in support of a greater social good. I’m not sure anyone is particularly exercised about legalized gambling like he apparently is (I’m certainly not) but I think there are some echoes of the sentiment.Report
Yeah Biden and Pelosi (and the Pope in Rome, heir to Saint Peter, Vicar of Christ), they aren’t Real Catholics, not really real, not like this woman who writes articles that I happen to agree with.Report
Pretty clear I didn’t say that. But your willful misunderstanding of all these things is why you misunderstand these things.Report
He isn’t saying Biden isn’t a real Catholic (which is what I interpreted Kristin as saying). He’s saying Biden represents an outmoded version of the Catholic Democrat Politician, and that changes in the party and society prevent him from living up to that obsolete version in public life or using it for political gain. It has nothing (or at least very little) to do with Biden’s personal beliefs or practice of his religion.Report
You get why that’s worse, right?
That the type of religious practice of (namechecking Cuomo, Biden, Pelosi and the Pope) which sees the role of the public servant to uphold the Constitution regardless of one’s private views, one that sees the Church approaching the modern world with a spirit of love and acceptance is “outmoded”.
That the future of American Catholics is represented by people(like Breunig) who would happily inflict their personal minority views on the majority without any regard for the horrors that would result.
Again and again, when discussing socialism, we have been reminded that no matter how happy and utopian it promises to be, when you inflict a minority view on the majority, you end up with horrors because the first order of business is to Make The Rabble Obey Our Command.
In order to bring about the vision of the Bruenigs it will require that sort of horror, as we are witnessing now in Republican states.
I would have more respect if these people just said “I am more Catholic than the Pope”.Report
I think what you’re describing is how Catholics should approach the modern world, and I think in practice that’s how most in the US do no matter how they vote. Even the conservatives are making compromises whether they like to admit it. We’re assimilated now and that’s what you do.
The question is whether you can still successfully make the kind of pitch Cuomo did in the current realities of Democratic coalition politics and the ongoing decline of religion in the larger polity. Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised but I’m not sure you can, which to be clear, I think is a bad thing for our politics but also for Catholicism.Report
I’m going to give Chip the benefit of the doubt that he is confusing Liz Bruenig with one of my crazy integralist friends because if I wanted to write a leftist parody response to prove my point it would have gone like this:
“something something something, and that’s why Liz Bruenig can’t be a Democrat.
QED”Report
You’ve heard that theory of why both Communist Romania and Communist China had diametrically opposite policies regarding abortion?
Because in the hands of people without regard for individual liberty, a person’s body becomes the property of the state, and the womb is a tool for what Justice Alito refers to as the “domestic supply of babies”, where the production is either dialed up or down depending on the need.
Yes I know perfectly well who Liz Breunig is, and I know she writes with soft honey words, but ultimately she is perfectly fine with overriding the bodily autonomy of millions of women.
It used to be that a person could treat abortion like a idle parlor game, a dorm room bull session and spin all sorts of bizarre “centrist” positions and try to have it both ways.
But the Republicans have forced the issue and are doing exactly what they have always said they would do, and now every woman who has a miscarriage and every doctor who treats her are living in fear of being arrested or sued.
This is a monstrous state of affairs, a violation of human dignity that any person of good will should loudly condemn. Soft sweet words about how much she likes being a mommy isn’t going to drown out the shrieks of other women’s suffering.Report
…and that’s why Liz Bruenig can’t be a Democrat.
QEDReport
I believe Liz Bruenig would be the first to tell you that she’s not a Democrat. Same with her husband. This, however, has absolutely nothing to do with her (their?) position on abortion.
By the way, you all know she used to write on this very site, right?
Also worth noting that while she finds abortion immoral, she’s gone out of her way to say that she does not believe it should be illegal, or even heavily restricted (I imagine she’d be in the “at viability” camp, though I can’t remember what she’s said on that specifically).Report
I know there are a lot of people who have uneasiness with second or even first trimester abortion, hut are also squeamish about making it illegal.
But as I keep saying, the Republicans have blown away any of the ambiguity or nuance surrounding the issue.
Yes, they are going to arrest and charge with murder a woman or doctor who performs any abortion at any stage.
Yes, any woman with a miscarriage may find herself in front of a tribunal of mullahs who will determine her fate.
And yes, desperate women will self induce and suffer horrible deaths of hemorrhage or infection.
The question for the Bruenigs of the world is which of the two “pro-life” positions they are going to ride.
Because, ultimately after all the handwriting and hemming and hawing it is very much a binary choice- does your vote go to party A or party B?Report
Wait, I just found a Party C.
Yeah, I’m going to vote for them.Report
I agree that Bruenig’s position is wrong, and would mean in a world where abortion is illegal, or is under threat (which is our world; I live in Texas, where it is de facto illegal, and all Americans live in a world where it is threatened), she is not an ally, and that’s bad. I just find misrepresenting her and her position distasteful, even as someone who doesn’t like her very much. Maybe I just have a soft spot for former OTers who’ve made it big. I mean, except Freddie.Report
Liberal democracy in America is hanging by a thread.
A single election in Pennsylvania may very well mean the end of free and meaningful elections in our lifetime. In a handful of swing states Republicans are replacing independents with loyal apparatchiks who can be counted on to manipulate the votes the proper way.
So I really don’t have any soft spots left.
I don’t have any tolerance for the quislings who can’t be relied upon to defend democracy or human rights, or the collaborationists who will eagerly salute the new overlords and turn a deaf ear to the cries of the underclass.
I just don’t have any tolerance for the old conventional politics of Tip & Ronnie. We don’t live in that world anymore.Report
Sure, she’s a Berniecrat.
But what’s relevant here is that it isn’t her weird 70s socialism that’s got Chip mad. It’s her sane Catholic stuff.
Which, going back to the OP and my original post addresses why no one writes about how Biden is so religious.
It’s a loser on every team.Report
I agree with the last part. People have been telling the Dems that there should play up their religiosity for as long as I can remember, and while it can be individually successful (a lot of Democrats ruining for office in the South, at least, highlight their religiosity in their ads), it’s never been clear to be how it would work for the party generally. “We’re the party of a Christianity modeled on Jesus’ love,” aside from being gross to non -Christians, won’t sway people like Kristin who want their Christianity built on hate.Report
She’s got herself a new blurb for the next book jacket:
“[Liz Bruenig] writes with soft honey words.”
– Chip Daniels, Ordinary Times commenterReport
I go back and forth on LB. She is great on some things then will either appear to be just trolling with some stuff then also say she just really wants a nice soft monarchy guided by god. She can’t easily be pinned down since she is an eccentric collection of insight and shallow ideas.Report
It’s common.
People who have gauzy watercolor daydreams of a world of pre-modern hierarchy of church and crown without the nightmares required to make them happen.Report
Well yeah, that is the shallow part of her thinking. Royalist/socialist is an actual combo on the menu in Europe though not here. There is a bit of trolling though with that. Most people are a mix of views often contradictory or difficult to rationalize. She more then most pundit types seems comfortable with that.
It is pundits and pols who glom onto the silliness of having every one of their views be rigidly aligned with a particular ideology.Report
“We need a Good Tsar!” is an oldie but a goodie.Report
I want a new czar, one that won’t make me sick
One that won’t make me crash my car
Or make me feel three-feet thick
I want a new drug, one that won’t hurt my head
One that won’t make my mouth too dry
Or make my eyes too red
Editied to add: thanks brain for keeping this utterly generic dumb song in my brain when i could have used that space for star trek factoids.Report
I believe her “Philosopher King” tweet was a joking reference to Plato. Skepticism of democracy, especially of the bourgeois sort, is pretty common on the left (hell, I quoted Lenin on it in a comment here last week), and if you ask what system a socialist (at least one with Marxist leanings) prefers, there’s not a Twitter-friendly answer, because any answer would require explaining the difference between, say, democratizing work places and bourgeois democracy.
Coincidentally, I was reading this paper this morning”
https://www.academia.edu/6127635/KARL_MARX_ON_DEMOCRACY_PARTICIPATION_VOTING_AND_EQUALITY_Political_Theory_1984_537_56?email_work_card=titleReport
With the R’s pretty much embracing minority rule at various levels the old Left skepticism of democracy seems less fun to me.
Not a twitter friendly answer?! Sir there are like hundreds of emoji’s out there. Don’t tell me complex questions can’t be explained in a single tweet.Report
Explain the left’s position on democracy in Twitter terms, sir!
OK! Facxtory emoji, worker emojis, holding hands emojis, “Eat the Rich!”
And left skepticism of democracy is, in part, because of the sorts of things conservatives are doing these days, though that’s of course not the entirety of it.Report
I want an eat the rich emoji. No idea what that would look like but i want it.Report
While typing that, I looked for one, and was disappointed not to find anything.Report
You would think since Big Tech is so left wing there would be 20 eat the rich emojis somehow even with vegan options.Report
You just have to get creative
Dollar Sign emoji
Hamburger emoji
Yawning Man emojiReport
Monopoly man made of chocolate is what I would go with.Report
The dog that isn’t barking here is who ELSE is ignoring his faith.
The Republicans already know Biden is a faithful and devout Christian.
Yet, strangely, as Kristin acknowledges, they don’t see him as “on their side”.
A philandering crook and cruel bully? Oh, he’s on their side alright.
A guy who drives his girlfriend to the abortion clinic? Yep, he’s on their side too.
But a man who is a faithful husband, loving father, generous and kind soul? Nah.
Its like I’ve been saying, that Conventional Political analysis doesn’t work with our current political moment. Conventional analysis assumes that the citizenry has a shaed outcome they all want, like peace and prosperity and simply disagrees over how to get it.
Our current moment has one conventional faction, the center-liberals, and the other faction holding its gathering in Hungary, praising its dictatorship and fervently promising to end democracy in America.
The politics of grievance and resentment doesn’t have peace and prosperity as its highest goal; It wants vengeance and punishment delivered to the outgroup.
A kindly grandpa who goes to church and takes the kids out for ice cream just doesn’t cut it.Report
Insert David From quote about conservatives giving up democracy before they give up conservativism here.Report
Jesus of Nazareth represents a type of faith that is a weak and dying.
All his talk about “turning the other cheek” doesn’t have the power to galvanize people to rise up against the Roman Occupation and deliver the smashing victory they want.
Even if he makes some perfunctory statements about raising the Temple, people see it as insincere and performative.
He ignores all the traditional cultural norms we cherish and has admitted to consorting with corrupt tax collectors and prostitutes, deeply offending the actual devout traditionalists.
The younger religious are more militant, and demand someone who will fight and take back our country from the cultural elite who have taken over all our institutions.
Barabbas for example, stands as a shining exemplar of what people really want. A proven leader, tested in battle and committed to the cause.Report
Oh, well done.Report
There is a very old joke of someone dying and going to heaven, and they are getting a tour and there are all the happy, smiling people congregated, then the setup is there is a room where a bunch of grumpy people are all enclosed and sealed off from the rest. The punchline of the joke is to insert whatever faith/denomination you are looking to zing and go “Those are the (insert faith group here), they think they are the only ones here.”
Faith may be the evidence of things unseen, but the politics of faith is too often a demand for sameness in the optics and buzzwords regardless of what your attendance says, and the problem with optical faith is everyone has a varied opinion on it.Report
I believe there is a quote somewhere about how it is the hypocrites who like to say their prayers in public.Report
The problem in American politics is that conservatives have convinced themselves that the only way to be religious is to be politically conservative to reactionary. The media sometimes or often gives them a free pass on this by referring to the Christian right-wing as “value voters” at face value from PR copy.
I tend towards apathetic agnosticism/close to atheism but there are tens of millions of Democrats and liberals who are religious and it is their faith that influences them to left-leaning politics. The Jewish person who takes the line about how we “were strangers in the house of Egypt” into a pro-immigrant view. And then there are Jews like Stephen Miller and Ben Shapiro who should be ashamed of themselves and treated like idiots for failing to realize that they will be put on the train eventually too.Report
Something, something, performative politics is bad, something, something.Report
Why won’t anyone write the truth in so many words? Kristin’s comments are disgusting. This, for example: “Sending Grandpa Joe to church is nothing more than flim-flam and it won’t erase reality.” No one need to “send” Joe to church. He goes there on his own, and has for many, many years. That’s reality. He doesn’t make a public display of it precisely because his beliefs are sincere, not trumped up for public display. (Pun intended.)Report
Well, any criticism of folks here who don’t radically embrace radical wokism is obviously an attempt to curtail the free speech rights of good, honest Americans. Kristen is simply being honest. Any criticism of that is hatespeech.Report
Is that reply intended ironically? I honestly cannot tell. It’s no more preposterous than plenty of straight-faced comments from others on this site.Report
It is indeed sarcastic and ironic.Report
Paging Mr. Poe.Report
OT has always had, and tolerated, its Kristinss. It pretty much always ends badly, but they’ve always been here, and one has to assume they always will be.Report
Over half of the comments have disagreed with her, but sure, if you wanted to add the word “disgusting”, go for it.Report
Some people just can’t handle themselves when they encounter a woman they’re allowed to disagree with.Report
That was beautiful.Report
Surely you recognize DD’s old shtick, trotting out on his mangy charger like some quixotic knight errant to defend the honor of womanhood when he, and only he, brings a woman poster’s gender into the discussion.
Windmills are a lot less dangerous than actual dragons.Report
Some people just can’t handle themselves when they encounter a woman they’re allowed to disagree with.Report
There are people who think repeating themselves is an argument. Not many, fortunately.Report
Precisely my point. When a comment is nothing more than a baseless personal assault, merely disagreeing is insufficient.Report
Americans are facing a choice.
One side features people like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.
The other side…
Trump shares CPAC Hungary platform with notorious racist and antisemite
Hungarian talk show host who has called Jews ‘stinking excrement’ and Roma ‘animals’ addresses rightwing conference
A notorious Hungarian racist who has called Jews “stinking excrement”, referred to Roma as “animals” and used racial epithets to describe Black people, was a featured speaker at a major gathering of US Republicans in Budapest.
Zsolt Bayer took the stage at the second day of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Hungary, a convention that also featured speeches from Donald Trump, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
The last featured speaker of the conference was Jack Posobiec, a far-right US blogger who has used antisemitic symbols and promoted the fabricated “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory smearing prominent Democrats as pedophiles.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/21/trump-shares-cpac-hungary-platform-racist-antisemite?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1653129188
Our conventional media using its conventional wisdom has no idea how to deal with this. They’re like a rabbit hypnotized by the cobra.
Keep in mind, this isn’t a situation of “If only the Republican base knew!”
They know. They read this same paper, they see the videos, they know exactly who Orban is and why he is so beloved by conservatives, and what these people have planned for when they take power.Report
“Gamers” have/had this thing going on there for a while.
Is someone who plays Candy Crush on their phone a “gamer”? Is only someone who has beaten Elden Ring a “gamer”?
There are the people who play games on their Playstations or XBoxes or PC (something something) who resent the idea that someone who is still playing Farmville on Facebook is in the same category as them.
Most fandoms do, now that I think about it.
“Oh, I’m a fan of European Cinema… I really enjoyed Bridget Jones’s Diary!”
“I’m a big music buff. This guy is called ‘The Weekend’ but he spells it wrong. This song sounds a lot like an obscure band from the 80’s called A-Ha.”
“I like Crystal Palace.”
And people who are familiar with the deep lore (they were there when it was written, even) find themselves resentful of these people who don’t seem to know that there’s a lot more going on with the subject than casuals are going to pick up.
While I don’t know that someone who plays phone games whilst in line at the bank is wrong if they call themselves a “gamer”, I do understand that there are people who build their identity around video games who resent such a thing for that reason and, heck, I understand where they’re coming from.
But, at the end of the day, isn’t it all just a matter of taste?
Canadians aren’t *WRONG* to not like unseasoned food. Southern and Southwestern Americans aren’t *CORRECT* to like it.
Anybody can claim to be anything. We can do whatever we want.
And as a Feminist, I think that that’s great.Report
What is “this thing”?
Christians and Catholics who vote R being allowed to tell Biden he isn’t REALLY a Catholic because they vote R and he’s a D?
Because that is a really gross and gnarly thing. And doesn’t seem remotely close to anything involving video games.Report
It depends on whether you see “Catholicism” as “Real”.
If you see it as merely a social construct, it suddenly looks a lot like video games.Report
Even then. What is their reason to doubting his Catholic bona fides? Anything actually related to the faith and its practice? Or just because they don’t like the guy?
This isn’t saying, “Candy Crushers aren’t real gamers.” This is saying, “Only Red Sox fans are real gamers… not Yankee fans.”Report
Yankees fans aren’t real baseball fans.
Now Brewers fans! Those are real baseball fans!
Yeah, that works pretty easily.
As for their reasons? Eh. I’m sure that you can come up with a handful of reasons that people who wear Yankees caps don’t have the moral stature of those who support the Blue Jays (Blue Jays fans certainly have).
Anything actually related to the faith and its practice?
Some of them, sure.
Or just because they don’t like the guy?
Some of them, sure.Report
You missed the point.
The criticism isn’t “Biden isn’t a real Catholic for reasons X, Y, and Z related to Catholicism.”
The criticism is “Biden isn’t a real Catholic because real Catholic drive Fords and vote R and smoke Marlboros (e.g., things having nothing to do with Catholicism).”
It’s not judging a baseball fan’s baseball status based on their chosen team. It’s judging a gamer’s gaming status based on his favorite baseball team.
Your analogy, quite simply, doesn’t apply.Report
Eh, arguing over what does or doesn’t have to do with Catholicism strikes me as similar to arguing over astrology. Even if you have someone who is an expert (even an authority!), you’re arguing over some things that are pretty far down the road after having made a wrong turn.
It’s like arguing over whether Han shot first. The people who argue that he did have some good points. The people who argue that he did not also have some good points. The people who argue that the shots were fired simultaneously can point to the footage.
That said, taking a whole bunch of assumptions as given, I’m pretty sure that some people might be able to argue about abortion being relevant to Catholicism.Report
I want to be careful wading into this, in part because I don’t like the way Jaybird’s comment was a response to some subthreads rather than to the original article. I’ve stated that I hate the “not a Christian” accusation. But being a Catholic is something specific, and it could be argued that Biden, while still being a Catholic, should be an excommunicated Catholic. That’s not the same as calling him a non-Catholic, a non-Christian, or a person going to Hell.Report
I wanted to target a particular argument (not a particular person).Report
Personally I think even the ‘is he a Catholic’ argument is a pretty ugly one to have. There are people qualified to have that discussion but I’m not sure many of those who would most like to are them. Not in the context we’re talking about here anyway.Report
If we’re talking percentages, I’m sure there are more people who think that Biden being Catholic means he isn’t a Christian. I was trying to answer Kazzy’s question about why people may doubt Biden’s Catholicism, not make the argument that his Catholicism should be doubted. As I said in what I think was my first comment on this thread, “If I were his pastor, bishop, or pope, I’d be having some talks with him aimed at correction, but that’s a different subject.”Report
“Y’all are not going to con job any conservatives into thinking Biden is suddenly a religious person because they know what the Democrats stand for and I don’t see you guys changing that any time soon.”
This.
This is not about how Biden practices his faith. This is about whether ANY Democrat can be considered to actually be a religious person.
That isn’t about faith. It’s about politics. And it is 10000% wrong.Report
I said I wanted to answer this question carefully, and that I didn’t like Jaybird’s comment being out of thread context. I said that, remember? I then went on to try to answer your question, “What is their reason to doubting his Catholic bona fides?” That’s not a question about whether any Democrat can be considered to be actually a religious person; it is a question specifically about Biden and the Catholic faith. You asked, I answered, and I’m not going to address a separate question until we agree on what the issues are that we’re discussing.Report
Pinky, I recognize what YOUR perspective may be on Biden’s faith.
But:
“I was trying to answer Kazzy’s question about why people may doubt Biden’s Catholicism,”
You offered AN answer. But Kristen offered a very different answer. And that is what I wanted to push back upon.Report
You asked about Biden’s Catholicism, which isn’t something Kristin addressed. And if you wanted to ask Kristin about it, you could have done what I did and post under her comment rather than Jaybird’s.Report
Fair enough, I didn’t catch that nuance.Report
Why should he be excommunicated? Because in his secular role he supports the right to choose? If that’s gonna be a thing – and some conservative US bishops seem to think it is (though the Pope seems to disagree) then a whole lot of conservative Catholic politicians need to be excommunicated for their stands on capitol punishment, or how the want to treat refugees and migrants. At some point you have to recognize that folly for what it is.Report
If you’re interested –
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/worthiness-to-receive-holy-communion-general-principles-2153Report
First – that statement is almost 20 years old. Surly there’s something more current you can point to?
Second, that’s about communion. Catholics can still attend mass and not be excommunicated especially if they don’t take communion.Report
IANACL (that would be Canon Law), so I can’t speak to it exactly. There are different types of excommunication, but as a general rule, if you’re forbidden to receive Communion, it’s not a good sign. I mainly posted this as support for the idea that abortion is in a different category than, say, capital punishment. As for the document’s age, I can say that it’s never been revised.Report
It’s also written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, i.e. Pope Benedict XVI.Report
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2021/09/15/pope-francis-joe-biden-bishops-communion-241424Report
This isn’t an easy discussion for a non-Catholic to follow. If you read the whole article, you get a hint of it.Report
I read the whole article. I’m on my second marriage to a lapsed Catholic – though my MIL is a lay Carmelite, so I get deeper into this then others. I was raised in French Catholic country in the only state where the unit of civil government is the Parish. The Bishop of Baton Rouge preached in our Presbyterian Church twice a year for over a decade. So no, I’m not Catholic – but I’m not part of the great unwashed masses either.
Pope Francis makes it clear in that article that he believes the flock should be cared for pastorally, and even the mortal sin of abortion isn’t a reason to deny Communion – because he also reminds the flock that Communion isn’t a prize to be won but a necessary connection to the Body and Blood.
That America’s Bishops have taken a harder, more closed, more antagonistic stance is their choice, but their boss is gently telling them to knock it off.Report
Any mortal sin is a reason to not receive Communion, and any knowledge by a priest of an unconfessed mortal sin is reason to deny Communion. You’re missing a lot of subtlety on this issue.Report
well then we need to determine if the President receives Communion. If he doesn’t, I’d say problem solved.
Which still doesn’t get at the Pope saying approach this as pastors and shepherds and the US Conference of Bishops working really hard to ignore him.Report
Has anyone ever defined any religion thusly?Report
It was a thing there, for a while.
Like, it made the rounds back when I was in college.Report
I suppose if you think about it they really are. I’ve just never heard it stated.
If you believe the Bible, Koran, etc. are truly the word of God, then everything else is, as Shaw would say, “haggling price”.Report
Sure.
For my part, I have no problem believing that the Koran is not divinely inspired.
Have you ever heard of the Satanic Verses? (No, not the book. The verses themselves.)
There are explanations for the Koran that are much simpler than those that require the archangel Gabriel (and, perhaps, angels (or former angels) that can sound just like him).Report
That’s a new one on me. I’m reminded of the scene from History of the World where Moses comes down from Sinai with 15, er 10, Commandments.Report
There has been enough time passing between the 80’s and now that you can read The Satanic Verses (the book) without it being An Important Novel.
It’s, like, the Muslim Life of Brian. Seriously, it’s *FUNNY*.Report
I do like me some Rushdie. I’ll have to check it out.Report
We have a couple of commenters who consider most everything a social construct.Report
Who are they?Report
You wouldn’t know them. They’re from Canada. I dated one of them.Report
In fairness if we’re going to use this metaphor I think it would be hard to call Biden a ‘casual’ given how often he seems to attend mass. This might work for the Easter/Christmas crowd but Biden is well beyond that. Based on publicly available information I’d say it’s more like he plays, and is competent enough at, blockbuster FPS. Maybe he also has dabbled in the big time RTS too. But don’t bring up whatever RPG is big right now in nerd kingdom and if you dare ask him about some crap like Portal 2 he’ll ask if you’ve ever had a girlfriend. Come on, man!Report
Ugh. Multiplayer.Report
Maybe relevant.
https://onlysky.media/alee/the-nonreligious-are-overwhelmingly-pro-choice/
Note this means the anti-choice are more religious than average.Report