Pew survey: Catholics, Jews overrepresented in Congress
posted at 5:10 pm on December 19, 2008 by Allahpundit
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They’ve been gaining for decades, to the point where our once heavily Protestant legislature is now only roughly as Protestant as the population itself: 54.7 percent in Congress versus 51.3 percent of Americans overall. For Catholics it’s 30.1 percent versus 23.9 overall and for Jews 8.4 percent versus 1.7 percent.
Differences become much more pronounced at the party level. While 70.8% of congressional Republicans are Protestant, fewer than half of Democrats (43.6%) belong to Protestant denominational families. On the other hand, the share of Democratic members who are Catholic (36.6%) is much greater than the number of Catholic GOP members (21%). And while Jews make up 13.4% of all congressional Democrats (including two independents who tend to caucus with the Democrats), they account for just 0.9% of congressional Republicans, with one Jewish Republican in the House and one in the Senate…
Congress, like the nation as a whole, has become much less Protestant and more religiously diverse. Indeed, the total percentage of Protestants in Congress has dropped from 74.1% in 1961 to 54.7% today, which roughly tracks with broader religious demographic trends during this period. As recently as the early 1980s, nearly two-thirds of Americans identified themselves as Protestants. In the recent Landscape Survey, the number of self-identified Protestants dropped to 51.3%.
Eyeball the tables at the link, especially the first one, and you’ll see that representation is remarkably proportionate by religious demographic, with no spread exceeding 6.7 percent — except for one subgroup. Can you guess which it is? Exit question: We can spare two or three seats in the Senate for a single family but we can’t set one aside for heathen nation? I’m ready to serve, if need be.
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+1. The problem is that most of the bishops in the U.S. are such squishes that Biden, Murkowski, Durbin, Pelosi and the cavalcade of Kennedys know that they can get by with it.
Mr. D on December 20, 2008 at 9:50 AM
Not sure, but I’m thinking maybe Barbara Mikulski is meant?
ddrintn on December 20, 2008 at 11:02 AM
I would sincerely like to believe that. I am not a regular enough regular around here to know who thinks/says what as a rule. I can’t recall ever reading anything she’s written before that would make me expect a statement like that, so I will gladly give your thought the benefit of the doubt and go with sarcasm. Still, in light of the anti-Christian tone almost every thread on this site has taken in the last several times I’ve checked, and not just by a troll or two, I just don’t know. At least since the last open registration, HotAir seems to have become a resort for anti-theists, pro-homosexual activists, and anti-Catholic Protestants (though those have been around since I first found the site.)
From what I can tell, they all still claim to be conservative of some stripe or other, with the exception of Dave can’t remember his actual name…(Drywall) and a couple others. If that’s the case, it would seem that we “Conservatives” are doomed. Two of the three legs are going to keep kicking the third (which should be, but is NOT united within itself) until the whole thing collapses. If it already hasn’t. *sigh*
Sapwolf, you are so right, and Mr. D, I agree, but see hopeful signs. When Archbishop Niederauer of SF makes a firm defense of the Church’s position on Prop 8, and the strong tone of the Bishops’ Conference’s statement on FOCA, I see hope that our bishops are finally deciding to do their duty to uphold the Church’s teachings (that or it truly is the coming of the end of the world). ;)
Of course, it has been so long in coming, the cynic in me questions their motivation. I can’t help but think it is less the Holy Spirit moving in them, than God’s Rottweiler nipping at their ankles, but I believe that, in itself, is the Holy Spirit at work. I’ll take it through any means.
ddrintn, Murkowski is correct, but sadly, so is Mikulski.
pannw on December 20, 2008 at 1:00 PM
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