While we’re on the subject of the relationship between religion and
\nsocial views, I’ve just received a pre-publication copy of a paper
\nwritten by University of Southern Illinois sociology prof. Darren
\nSherkat and a couple of colleagues analyzing the connections between
\nreligion, partisan politics, and views of same-sex marriage. Yes, it”s a
\ngnarly regression-analysis-laden exercise that will appear later this
\nyear in the journal Social Science Research<\/i>–but it provides an excellent window into the structure of the culture wars in our time.<\/p>\n
The paper looks at the two-decade period between 1988 and 2008, during
\nwhich same-sex marriage went from being opposed by two-thirds of the
\nAmerican adult population to less than one-half. In 1988, opposition was
\nmore or less the same among Democrats and Republicans, and among the
\nvarious species of Christians. Now there’s a substantial divergence
\nbetween “sectarian Protestants” (evangelicals) and Republicans on the
\none hand and everyone else on the other. In a word, the sectarians and
\nthe Republicans have shifted far less towards acceptance of same-sex
\nmarriage than the rest of the population.<\/p>\n
What Sherket et al.’s regressions show is that Republicanism as well as
\nevangelicalism operate as independent variables: Both push their members
\ntoward opposition to same-sex marriage. (Just as, it seems, Democratic
\nideology pushes in the opposite direction.) Unfortunately, the
\nresearchers did not create an age cohort of voters born after 1978 that
\nwould enable us to see if sectarians in their 20s differed significantly
\nfrom their elders. Be that as it may, the paper shows how a social
\nissue that didn’t significantly divide the public on partisan lines two
\ndecades ago has come to do so. You don’t have to look further than this
\nweek’s vote on Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell to understand the dynamics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While we’re on the subject of the relationship between religion and social views, I’ve just received a pre-publication copy of a paper written by University of Southern Illinois sociology prof. Darren Sherkat and a couple of colleagues analyzing the connections between religion, partisan politics, and views of same-sex marriage. Yes, it”s a gnarly regression-analysis-laden exercise…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n