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Newly minted Political Animal Steve Benen and Andrew Sullivan are encouraged by a new Pew Poll that says more Americans are questioning the role of faith in politics. But after reading the poll, it's not clear that this is anything but a temporary and terribly convenient shift.
The new national survey by the Pew Research Center reveals that most of the reconsideration of the desirability of religious involvement in politics has occurred among conservatives. Four years ago, just 30% of conservatives believed that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. Today, 50% of conservatives express this view.It's conservatives, not the population in general, who are suddenly "much more in line with the views of moderates and liberals than was previously the case." Well there's a reason for that: this year conservatives don't have a very religious candidate and the GOP's evangelical base, according to the survey, isn't very excited about him. Of course they've shifted in the direction of questioning the role of houses of worship in politics--if they gave John McCain the same religious test they've leveled at every Democrat since Bill Clinton, he wouldn't do very well. It's not like there's been a significant backlash against the kind of conservative, religion based policies--such as forcing hospitals to retain health workers who don't want to do their jobs--we may simply be witnessing conservatives lowering the bar on an issue they don't have the same advantage they have in the past. As Pew points out, four in ten voters now view the Democrats as a "religion-friendly" party, while in the past that view was limited to 26 percent.
What is encouraging though, is that same-sex marriage is not the wedge issue it used to be, as fewer voters in 2008 see the issue as being as important as it was in 2004. But there's no way to know if the general shift in how conservatives view the role of religion in politics is them "coming around" or simply applying a double standard.
-- A. Serwer
