Applause: people of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, Harlem, New York, clap a reference to Mr Obama on Sunday
by Pat Ashworth
ANALYSIS of how religious people in the United States voted in last week’s presidential election indicates that the victorious Senator Barack Obama managed, in the words of one Washington analyst, to “narrow the God Gap”, principally by winning over Roman Catholics.
Senator Obama won the popular vote by 52 per cent to Senator John McCain’s 46 per cent. Mr McCain attracted more Protestants (54 per cent against 45 per cent) but fewer Roman Catholics: 54 per cent voted for Mr Obama and 45 per cent for Mr McCain.
Seventy-four per cent of white Evangelicals supported Mr McCain, just 24 per cent voting for Mr Obama; 55 per cent of regular churchgoers voted for Mr McCain, 43 per cent for Mr Obama. In 2004, the proportions were 61 per cent for George Bush and 39 per cent for John Kerry, a Roman Catholic.
“Obama forged a new democratic faith coalition,” the analyst Steve Waldman told the Wall Street Journal. “To a large degree, he was able to make such progress with these groups because of the economy. Some pro-life voters went with Obama in spite of his positions on ‘values issues’, not because of them.”
The Democrats continue to support legalised abortion, but it is thought that their parallel commitment to strengthening social support for women to encourage them to have their babies enabled Roman Catholics to vote for them. Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago and president of the United States’ Conference of Catholic Bishops, said, however, that Roman Catholic leaders must remain opposed to the party’s approach.
“Common ground cannot be found by destroying the common good,” he told the New York Times. But he also pledged the support of Roman Catholic bishops in the US, and told Senator Obama: “We stand ready to work with you in defence and support of the life and dignity of every human person.”
An official statement from the Episcopal Church in the United States said that views would differ on the outcome of the vote, but that Senator Obama’s election represented “a significant victory in our nation’s long and continuing struggle to heal the wounds of injustice and inequality in our common life”.
African-American churches in the US are reported to have welcomed the news, some boisterously, some quietly, not wanting to politicise Sunday worship. The Black Christian Leaders Forum in the UK gave a warm welcome. Dr David Muir said: “This is a defining moment in American political history. . . Ultimately, it is the realisation and triumph of Martin Luther King’s dream of a person being judged not by the colour of their skin, but the content of their character.”
Environmentalists worldwide have welcomed a new era, hoping the new leadership will ratify the Kyoto treaty on climate change. The US is the only one of the OECD countries not to have done so.
Settling the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is deemed by others to be the highest priority. The Council on American-Muslim relations said it looked forward to working with Senator Obama “in protecting the civil rights of all Americans, projecting an accurate image of America in the Muslim world, and playing a positive role in securing our nation”.
The Bishop of New Hampshire, the Rt Revd Gene Robinson, told The Times that he had had three conversations with Senator Obama before the election, describing them as part of his “extraordinary” outreach to all religious communities.
Meanwhile, Senator McCain’s running-mate, Governor Sarah Palin, has announced that she will wait for guidance from God on whether to stand for the presidency in 2012.
Audacious? George Watts’s 1885 painting Hope, which Barack Obama has cited as the inspiration behind his presidential running campaign and his latest book, Audacity of Hope. The painting is on display at the Guildhall Gallery of Art in the City of London until 26 April 2009 in the exhibition “G. F.
She is quoted in the Daily Telegraph as saying: “I’m like, OK, God, is there is an open door for me somewhere. This is what I always pray, I’m like, don’t let me miss the open door. And if there is an open door in ’12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, then I’ll plough through that door.”