It's time for another round of "Name That Newspaper."
Our friends at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life have released another large chunk of their annual blast of data about the state of religion and public life. In newspapers this translates into religion and politics and, this close to an election, that translates into headlines about who is headed up, with God, and who is headed down.
In that spirit, GetReligion readers are asked to guess which of the following two headlines and leads come from The New York Times and which comes from The Washington Times.
Brace yourselves, because this will be really hard.
Few see Democrats as friendly to religion
Liberal or progressive Christians, who make up 34 percent of the population, are disunified on key issues, and only one out of four Americans considers the Democratic Party friendly to religion, a Pew poll shows.
And now, here is our second lead covering the same study:
In Poll, G.O.P. Slips as a Friend of Religion
A new poll shows that fewer Americans view the Republican Party as "friendly to religion" than a year ago, with the decline particularly steep among Catholics and white evangelical Protestants -- constituencies at the core of the Republicans' conservative Christian voting bloc.
And there you have it. If you could not figure out that story No. 1 comes from The Washington Times and that story No. 2 is from The New York Times then, honestly, I don't know what we can do for you.
But please let me stress that I do not intend this exercise as a criticism of either Julia Duin or Laurie Goodstein, the veteran Godbeat reporters who wrote these news stories. After a quick glance at some of the survey materials, it seems to me that both of these stories are accurate and, frankly, both are pretty obvious to anyone who follows the news or this weblog.
Yes, there are quite a few conservative religious believers in quite a few conservative pews who are not very happy with the Republican Party at the moment.
Meanwhile, the "religious left" has been getting lots and lots of ink in recent months -- as well it should. There is quite a bit of evidence that the Democratic Party is, in large part, led by a coalition of people who are either secular or very active in liberal denominations that are defined, in large part, by their opposition to the traditional religious views of believers on the traditional side of the aisle.
However, the "religious left" itself is rather small when it comes to real people sitting in real pews. It tends to hail from religious groups that are aging and shrinking. Click here for a controversial essay in the Los Angeles Times on that topic.
So, it is one thing to say that the GOP has reason to fear that people in pews may not be all that fired up. It is something else to say this means these core voters will switch to the other side of the social-issues aisle. And, as always, this means that voters in Catholic pews are the great swing factor -- as they have been for ages and ages. Amen.
This leads me back to another Pew study that was released a few weeks ago that focused on how Americans feel about social issues. The big lead on this story was that Americans are confused and/or diverse on social issues and, thus, it is wrong to talk about "culture wars." However, the numbers had not changed that much. Click here to go to that study and, if you wish, click here for the Scripps Howard News Service column that I wrote about it.
Once again, it isn't all that shocking to find out what core Republican voters believe about issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. What I found interesting in that previous Pew report was the information about my fellow Democrats, especially those of us who are opposed to abortion. Here is part of my column, drawing on an interview with veteran pollster John C. Green. These are some wild numbers.
As expected, Republicans were more conservative than Democrats. Nevertheless, 10 percent of "liberal" Democrats chose the most anti-abortion option and 13 percent said abortion should be illegal, except in cases of rape, incest or to save a mother's life. Then, 14 percent said abortion rights should be restricted with new laws, which Green said might include a "partial-birth" abortion ban, parental-notification laws, mandatory waiting periods and even a ban on late-term abortions.
"Many of those liberals are black Democrats who are frequent church goers," said Green. "But those Democrats are still out there."
Meanwhile, 12 percent of "moderate" and "conservative" Democrats backed a complete abortion ban, while another 39 percent said abortion should be "illegal, with few exceptions," the choice that Green called a "modern pro-life stance." Another 20 percent backed legalized abortion, with more restrictions. Once again, church attendance seemed to influence these views.
In all, 37 percent of liberals and 71 percent of centrist Democrats said they supported policies that would not be allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court under current interpretations of Roe v. Wade and other decisions defining abortion rights.
But this does not mean that all of those Democrats are going to vote Republican. The poll numbers are more complex than that.
So if you are really interested in these topics, it pays to read several different reports about the same research and, if you have the time, scan the poll numbers for yourself. These days, it will almost always be available with a few clicks of a mouse.
UPDATE: Rod "friend of this blog" Dreher has a lengthy post up at Beliefnet on this new Pew poll. Check it out.