Abortion vs. Homosexuality for Young Evangelicals

The Obama campaign is, wisely, targeting young evangelicals. When talking about social issues of interest to evangelicals, we tend to lump abortion and homosexuality together. But the politics are actually different, especially among young evangelicals.

Basically, young evangelicals are just as conservative as their parents on abortion but significantly more liberal on homosexuality. A few point of proof:

John Green at the Pew Religion Forum reports:

Abortion: 62.3% of white evangelicals overall are pro-life; 69.2% of those under the age of 30 are pro-life. Pretty similar.

Homosexuality: 65.4% of white evangelicals say homosexuality should be discouraged while 54.9% of those under 30 believe homosexuality believe that.

A Beliefnet.com survey found the same thing:

Abortion: 63.9% of those over the age of 60 said ending abortion was very important; 66% of those under 29 agreed.

Homosexuality: 61.8% of the oldest group said "stopping gay marriage" was very important, while only 34% of the younger group said so.

Finally, Barna Research found:

Abortion: The percentage of "born again Christians who believed abortion is a "major problem":

Age
18-21 -- 69%
42-60 -- 72%
61 + -- 67%

While the breakdown for those saying "homosexuality" was a major problem was:

Age
18-41 -- 35%
42-60: -- 52%
61+: -- 71%

So what's the relevance of this? I'm not weighing in on the question of whether Obama has moved to the center too much, or on the substance of his positions on abortion vs. homosexuality. My point for Obama (or McCain) is that if the goal is appealing to young evangelicals, a candidate needs to have a centrist position on abortion, but not necessarily on gay rights.

Comments

[kjdwyer]

HuffPost's Pick

This is the first generation of Americans to grow up (from the get-go) with people who are openly gay. I'm 50 and if someone had asked me 35 years ago if I knew anyone who was gay, I would've honestly said no; and I'm gay.

Now, no matter what your race, creed, political stripe, address or party affiliation, you probably at least know someone who is gay. Phyllis Schlafly has a gay son. Newt Gingrich's sister is gay, etc.

Gay people transcend all barriers of class, race, gender, party affiliation and yes, religious bias. Now that there's at least an environment where most gay people feel comfortable enough in their own skin to identify themselves as gay, there's no longer this knee-jerk opportunity for enemies to characterize homosexuality as deviant. Most young evangelicals know someone who's gay and it's not that easy simply to write someone off with a label when you actually know them.

Many years ago Harvey Milk said that if every gay person came out at the same time, our issues would resolve rapidly. He was absolutely right. Your statistics prove that.

That's not to say that there's not more fights to be waged, but look where we are versus 40 years ago.

[bigbingtheory]

Abortion should not be a moral issue politically, it should simply be a legal one. Despite the contrary opinions Roe v Wade is grounded in Constitutional law and for good reason. There is no way for the government to know a person has had an abortion without invading their privacy. Equal protection also applies. If you enact laws against women you have to do so for men. Men can't have babies and can skip on out of town shirking their responsibility.
On the moral side we should do as the Democrats have stated for years make abortion safe, legal and rare. I see no problem with the government encouraging women to have children instead. The government should do more to prevent violence against women and a safety net for would be mothers.
Obama should frame the issue in a legal context first to end the argument abortion should be made criminal and the gvmnt should help curb unwanted pregnancies instead.

[PuppaX]

Obama is not pro-abortion, he is pro-choice and for comprehensive sex education. That means he is for education as a means of ensuring as few unwanted pregnancies as possible, while ensuring that those pursuing them will be able to get them without the significant dangers that accompany their criminalization.

Even people who are "pro-life" should be inclined to vote for Obama. He is the candidate who is actually using pragmatic means to avoid abortions.

[mikey683]

Wow the younger evangelicals "might" be OK with the fact that I exist...lucky me.

[bgregs]

Is anyone really surprised by this? I've known for years that the younger evangelicals feel much the same way that I do. They tend to feel that whatever you want to do that doesn't harm another is fine. Of course, on abortion we have a different standard of harm.....

[livinontheend]

Everytime I read an article talking about politicians catering to the "evangelicals" by using the abortion issue, I just want to tell all of them to "get a life" and mind their own business. Every evangelical that rants and raves about abortion should be required to adopt and support a child born because the mother was denied her right of medical choice over her own body. This would also include supplying all needed medical insurance so the child never has to depend on Medicaid. Think anyone would change their minds? Probably not, they would figure a way out of that ..........­..........­.

[Researchguy66]

Should mothers who cannnot supply all needed medical insurance so the child never has to depend on Medicaid exercise responsible individual choice and terminate their pregancies?

Seems an odd requirement for adoption to me, unless children who receive Medicaid are somehow worth less.

[bigbingtheory]

I think the point was evangelicals feel abortion is bad because it kills a baby. But a lot of the same folks complain about having to pay for welfare. It seems they don't connect the two. If you force more women to have children by making abortion illegal there will be more babies. More babies born in bad situations and bad circumstances. It's not the child's fault, so who is going to help them? The people that kept the women from having abortions.

[UnbiasView]

"Every evangelical that rants and raves about abortion should be required to adopt and support a child born because the mother was denied her right of medical choice over her own body"

Actually, I could care less about abortion either way but the woman did make a choice with her own body . . . have sex and get pregnant.

[kissmygrits]

Children as punishment? That's awesome. Really a great policy.

[bigbingtheory]

Rape? Incest? A young girl desperate to keep her pleading boyfriend happy? Until men don't objectify and abuse women there will be a need for abortion. It must remain a legal option. There is no way to even find out if a woman has one or a Dr. performs one without violating the woman's privacy. On a side note, I wonder if there was a test that could be taken on a fetus that could detect a gay gene, if some of these evangelicals wouldn't reconsider their position on abortion. Or if they get raped or any of the other scenarios I mentioned. It's easy to pass judgment on people when it doesn't affect you(not you personally) directly.

[KristenfromMA]

'Pro-life' should read 'pro-forced birth.' Call a spade a spade.

[UnbiasView]

Then would you call pro-choice 'baby killing' because that is the same thing.

[bigbingtheory]

"Zygote killing" would be more accurate I think.

[KristenfromMA]

No, I'd call it CHOICE. Of the individual woman, which sometimes (SUPRISE!) is a choice to proceed with the pregnancy.

[jmpurser]

I say talk to them where you can. But progressives and liberals should respect both themselves and evangelicals enough not to change their views in order to sell themselves to evangelicals.

[realityczech4u]

I notice that you separate 'progressives' from 'liberals'. Could you explain the difference between the two?

[UnbiasView]

I can't, they are both about bigger government. I can make distinction between Democrats and liberals though.

[bigbingtheory]

This liberal thinks the terms are fairly interchangeable. Progressive connotes more of an action. So I guess a progressive is a liberal who works towards a liberal agenda.