TruthBook Religious News Blog

Poll: Social concerns go deeper than abortion

By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

The election of Barack Obama as president is a signal that the religious right is on the way out, according to several experts reviewing a newly released poll on the religious vote.

But don't look for its successor to be the religious left.

The data indicate Mr. Obama's victory was aided by the emergence of a new and diverse religious coalition that views fighting poverty, protecting the environment, and promoting world peace to be critical issues - not just abortion rights and same-sex marriage upon which the religious right has focused.

The poll, conducted by Washington-based Public Religion Research, examined the reasons given by people of faith for voting for either Democrat Mr. Obama or Republican candidate John McCain.

Robert Jones, president of Public Religion Research, said one of the key findings was that a majority of both evan-gelical Christians (55 percent) and Catholics (51 percent) said agendas best reflecting their values include the issues of poverty, the environment, war and peace, abortion rights, and same-sex marriage. In contrast, only 21 percent of evangelicals and 13 percent of Catholics said a narrower agenda focused on abortion rights and same-sex marriage best reflected their values.

The new coalition includes black and Latino voters, younger white Christians, new evangelical pastors and students, progressive Catholics, and Protestants...

The poll reported that while only 21 percent of white evangelicals voted for Mr. Obama, of those who did, 39 percent considered him to be friendly to their religion and 39 percent felt he shares their values.

Among Catholics, 54 percent voted for Mr. Obama while 64 percent said the Democratic candidate shares their values.

Among all religious groups, 58 percent considered Mr. McCain friendly to religion and 54 percent said Mr. Obama was friendly to religion. Mr. Obama's numbers in that category are 16 points higher than his party's; only 38 percent of voters said the Democratic Party was friendly to religion.

The survey also reported Mr. McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate proved to be a net loss for the party. The Alaska governor increased support among 30 percent of evangelicals, but decreased support among every other religious group and among political independents, according to poll data.

The most important issue by far among religious voters was the same as that of the general public: the economy. Seventy percent of all religious groups cited the economy as the most important issue, followed by the Iraq war (35 percent), health care (31 percent), terrorism (19 percent), abortion rights (14 percent), and same-sex marriage (6 percent).

The Public Religion Research survey polled 1,277 voters between Nov. 5 and Nov. 7 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent. It was sponsored by Faith in Public Life, Sojourners, and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Labels: abortion, Barack Obama, David Yonke, Iraq, John McCain, Public Religion Research, the economy

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Friday, November 14, 2008

Exit poll: Tennessee still buckle of Bible Belt

2 of 3 white voters identify themselves as evangelical Christians

Duncan Mansfield, Associated Press
Thursday, November 13, 2008

Their presidential candidate lost and their influence in national politics may be waning, but white evangelical Christians clearly dominated the 2008 election in Tennessee.

Even for a Bible Belt state that is headquarters to the Southern Baptist Convention, their majority was surprising — two of every three white voters in Tennessee identified themselves as evangelical Christians in exit polls.

This in a state where 84 percent of the voters were white, according to surveys of 1,520 randomly selected voters by Edison Media Research for The Associated Press and television networks.

McCain carried Tennessee convincingly, and the white evangelical turnout likely contributed to Republicans taking control of both chambers of the Tennessee Legislature for the first time in 140 years.

Out of the 40 states where exit polls asked voters if they are born-again Christians, only Arkansas had more white evangelicals than Tennessee. Arkansas had 55 percent. Tennessee and Oklahoma each had 52 percent. For Tennessee, that was virtually unchanged since 2004.

The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, meaning white evangelicals actually could make up anywhere from 48 percent to 56 percent of Tennessee’s voters.

Arkansas is home to Mike Huckabee, the former governor and ordained Baptist minister who beat McCain in the Republican presidential primary in Tennessee in February.

White evangelicals made up 26 percent of voters nationwide in this election.

They voted 3-1 for McCain across the country and in Tennessee. But for the first time in several election cycles, white conservative Christians weren’t a factor in the national contest. Obama won easily — 53 percent to 45 percent — without them.

Tennessee exit polls showed that a presidential candidate’s values were most important to about a third of voters overall, but to an even greater number — 41 percent — of white evangelicals.

More than half of white, evangelical Christians in Tennessee said the economy was the No. 1 issue, slightly fewer than all voters statewide, followed by terrorism, slightly more than voters across the state.

Tennessee white evangelicals were far more likely to be Republican and live in East Tennessee.

White, evangelical Christians were 44 percent Republican, 37 percent Independent and 19 percent Democrat, compared with Tennesseans overall, who are 32 percent Republican, 37 percent Independent and 30 percent Democrat, according to the poll.

They represented two of every three voters in East Tennessee and slightly more than half the voters in the rural counties of Middle and West Tennessee. They were just less than half the voters in metropolitan Nashville and about two of every five voters in greater Memphis.

Labels: Barack Obama, Duncan Mansfield, election, evangelicals, John McCain, Tennessee, voters

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Monday, September 29, 2008

Religion and Politics: Combustible Combination Influences Voters' Choices

September 25, 2008 —

Americans who regularly attend worship services tend to hold more conservative religious views, so if they decide to be similarly dedicated to voting in November, their votes could tip the presidential election to John McCain.

But if Barack Obama can rouse the more lackadaisical Christians among us, they may swing the election in his favor, based on historical trends.

Those were some of the links between religion and politics highlighted by Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, who spoke Monday evening at a University of Virginia Center for Politics event.

Lugo presented findings from the Pew Forum's recent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, which was based on interviews with more than 35,000 American adults.

The survey found strong correlations between Americans' degree of religiosity, as measured by church attendance, and voting patterns in the 2004 election. Survey respondents were asked to describe how often they attended church: more than weekly, weekly, monthly, a few times a year, or seldom to never. Those who attend church more than weekly chose Bush over Kerry by 64 percent to 35 percent, while 58 percent of weekly churchgoers voted for Bush.

In a nearly symmetrical reversal of those preferences, those who seldom attend church favored Kerry by 62 percent to 35 percent. The preference for Bush declined steadily in correlation with attending church less often.

This so-called "God gap" is more accurately described as a church attendance gap, Lugo said, and the Obama campaign is absolutely determined to close this gap.

Political preferences can also be broken down by religious affiliation, Lugo said. White evangelical Protestants, who make up nearly a quarter of the American electorate, voted for Bush at a 78 percent clip in 2004. In contrast, even higher percentages of Jews and black Protestants favored the Democratic candidates in 2000 and 2004.

But despite all the efforts of Obama to appeal to Christians, surveys show that he has made no progress appealing to self-described white "evangelical" voters. About 71 percent of them back the McCain-Palin ticket, according to a Pew survey conducted Sept. 9-14 — up from 61 percent in June, and about the same proportion as supported Bush in 2000, said Lugo.

Catholics make up nearly 20 percent of the electorate, and they have become a key swing vote in American politics, Lugo said. Gore won the overall Catholic vote by 3 percentage points in 2000, but Kerry lost that bloc by 5 points in 2004.

While about two-thirds of Hispanic Catholics favored both Gore and Kerry, white Catholic voters were much more evenly divided, with Bush garnering 52 percent of their vote in 2000 and 56 percent in 2004. How these white Catholics vote will be critical to the upcoming election, Lugo predicted.

Religion has always been important in American public life, with attitudes only shifting gradually, and over decades. From 2000 through 2008, a steady 70 to 72 percent of Americans agree with the proposition: "It's important to me that a president have strong religious beliefs." In the 1950s, Americans were much more open to electing an atheist or someone without strong religious convictions, Lugo said.

The increase in pro-religion sentiments in the past 50 years was spurred in part by facing the "godless" enemy of communism in the Cold War, said Charles Mathewes, a professor of religious studies. If Americans continue to face a significant threat from fundamentalist Muslim terrorists for the next 30 to 40 years, he wondered, will the importance of religion in public life wane?

As for this year's election, the "fundamentals" of an unpopular Republican president, a tanking economy and a derided war appear to favor the Democrats, Lugo said. But current polls show a very tight presidential race.

"In this election, everything is against the Republicans," Lugo said. "To be honest, I'm just surprised it's so close. ... I guess there's a lot of underlying discomfort in closing the deal with Obama."

— By Brevy Cannon

Labels: Barack Obama, Brevy Cannon, church, election, John McCain, Luis Lugo, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, politics

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Friday, September 19, 2008

How different faiths view major issues

By CATHY LYNN GROSSMAN • USA TODAY •
September 18, 2008

God is punishing us.

Guardian angels protect us.

The Earth is in grave danger.

So finds Baylor University’s newest survey on Americans’ religious beliefs and practices.

The survey, to be released today, is based on interviews with 1,700 adults conducted in fall 2007. Among the highlights:

Environment

Evangelicals less worried about global climate change

Most respondents to the Baylor Religion Survey agree that “if we do not change things dramatically,” global climate change will be ”a disaster” (67%); coal, oil and natural gas will be exhausted (70%) and most plant and animal life will be destroyed (57%).

But evangelical Protestants are significantly less likely (55%) than other religious groups to be alarmed about global climate change or to forecast destruction of life unless changes are made (49%).

While 56% of U.S. adults say the government is not spending enough to improve and protect the environment, fewer evangelicals do — 41%, says Baylor sociologist F. Carson Mencken.

Indeed, evangelicals are at least twice as likely as any other major religious group to say the government is already spending too much. Most likely to say spending is too little: Jews, 81%, and people with no religious affiliation, 79%.

Environmentalism has been controversial among evangelicals. When the National Association of Evangelicals launched a “Call to Action” on climate change in 2006, some religious conservatives, led by James Dobson of Focus on the Family, strongly opposed it.

Gender and politics

Are women suited for politics? Americans are deeply divided

The survey reveals deep divisions over women’s roles in society, splits that may play out in the November elections.

For example, 33% of Americans say ”Most men are better suited emotionally for politics than most women.” But 44% of evangelical Protestants agree, more than other Christians and markedly higher than Jews (29%), other religions (23%), and those with no religion (14%).

The Baylor data was gathered in 2007, when Sen. Hillary Clinton was seeking the Democratic nomination, but long before Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was named to the Republican vice-presidential ticket, putting motherhood and gender in the spotlight. Palin is a mother of five, including an infant with Down syndrome.

Both Republican candidates are evangelical Protestants (John McCain is Baptist and Palin non-denominational). Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is a mainline Protestant (United Church of Christ), whose running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, is Roman Catholic.

The survey also finds:

• 41% say a preschooler suffers if the mother works (54% of evangelicals say so, nearly double for other groups).

• 31% say “it’s God’s will that women care for children” (48% for evangelicals).
Will these views shape votes?

Tragedy and evil

Dealing with evil: Candidates disagree

God either causes or allows “major tragedies to occur as a warning to sinners,” say 20% of U.S. adults.

While 43% say most evil is caused by the devil, 47% disagree — a statistical tie.

But most (68%) would not say human nature is basically evil.

So where does evil dwell — in the devil or in mankind? The Baylor survey allows for overlapping views; it finds 36% strongly agree with both statements.

"Those who believe God causes or allows bad things to happen did not speak in terms of tragedies being God’s fault,” says Baylor sociologist Christopher Bader.

Bader says people told him that “tragedies are our fault. We have sinned as a nation and God has stood aside and allowed terrible things to happen.”

Among the questions that the Rev. Rick Warren asked both presidential candidates at his Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency was, ”Does evil exist?” Both candidates said yes.

Sen. Barack Obama said it is “God’s task” to ”erase evil from the world” but “we can be soldiers in that process.”

Sen. John McCain said, ”Evil must be defeated,” and linked it entirely to “the transcendent challenge of the 21st century — radical Islamic extremism.”

Labels: Barack Obama, Baylor Religion Survey, Cathy Lynn Grossman, environmentalism, evil, John McCain, politics, women

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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Poll: Most want church out of politics

By DAVID PAUL KUHN | 8/21/08 2:46 PM EST

Page one of two - please click on "external source" for complete article

For the first time in a dozen years, a majority of Americans believe that churches and religious institutions should “keep out” of politics, according to the annual Pew Religion and Public Life Survey.

It’s the highest level of public concern with faith’s effect on politics since Pew began asking the question in 1996.

The rise in Americans’ desire to separate religion and politics — from 44 percent in 2004 to 52 percent today — appears due to a surprising increase in conservative distaste for mingling the institutions — from 30 percent in 2004 to half of conservatives expressing the view today.

Among white evangelicals, 36 percent want religious groups to stay out of politics, a dramatic rise from 16 percent four years ago.

The findings come in the wake of the Saddleback Civil Forum on Saturday, when, in unprecedented fashion, both presidential candidates — Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama — joined popular evangelical leader Rick Warren at his megachurch for their first back-to-back campaign appearance.

But the study, the most authoritative national survey of politics and religion, was conducted prior to event, July 31 to Aug. 10. Conducted on mobile and land line phones, the survey had a large national sample of 2,905 adults, with an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

In the survey, released Thursday, about half of Americans who view gay marriage and abortion as “very important” voting issues say churches should not be involved in politics. In 2004, only one in four voters who saw gay marriage as a top issue said the same, while a third of those who saw abortion as a top issue agreed.

Overall, 48 percent of Americans believe that social conservatives wield “too much” influence in the GOP.

Yet older adults appeared most irked by the mingling of religion and politics. Only 18 percent of Americans age 65 and older said churches should endorse candidates, while roughly a third of voters under age 50 believed a church support for a candidate was appropriate.

The public is also increasingly split over whether they feel “discomfort” when politicians discuss religion in the sphere of public policy, as both Obama and McCain did at length Saturday.

Yet more Americans — half in fact — still say it does not bother them “when politicians talk about how religious they are.” Forty-six percent said they were offended.

American religiosity, however, remains no less prevalent. The public appears to continue to support expressions of faith by public figures while feeling increasingly uncomfortable when that faith falls into the sphere of politics.

The public believes that a president should have “strong religious beliefs.” Fully 72 percent say so today, a modest uptick since 2004 — including 85 percent of voters who attend church at least once a week and 66 percent of independent voters. Equally, only 29 percent of the public believes there is “too much” expression of religious faith by political leaders.

At the same time, the public’s perception of Democrats' unfriendliness to people of faith has significantly improved, though the issue persists.

Labels: abortion, Americans, Barack Obama, David Paul Kuhn, gay rights, John McCain, Pew Religion and Public Life Survey, politics, religion

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Friday, August 15, 2008

New Barna Group Survey on Religion and the Presidential Election

August 12, 2008, 10:27 am
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny

Senator Obama seems to be ahead of Senator McCain among most faith groups.

Among Catholics, he leads 39 percent to 29 percent. But he has slipped since June.

What’s interesting to me about polling, although I know nothing about it, is the formulation of categories. Here is what the article says about categorizing evangelicals. Anybody know if they have as complicated an approach to categorizing Catholics?

Understanding Evangelicals

One of the most frequently reported on groups of voters is evangelicals. Most media polls use a simplistic approach to defining evangelicals, asking survey respondents if they consider themselves to be evangelical. Barna Group surveys, on the other hand, ask a series of nine questions about a person’s religious beliefs in order to determine if they are an evangelical. The differences between the two approaches are staggering.

Using the common approach of allowing people to self-identify as evangelicals, 40% of adults classify themselves as such. Among them, 83% are likely to vote in November. Among the self-reported evangelicals who are likely to vote, John McCain holds a narrow 39% to 37% lead over Sen. Obama. Nearly one-quarter of this segment (23%) is still undecided about who they will vote for.

Using the Barna approach of studying people’s core religious beliefs produces a very different outcome. Just 8% of the adult population qualifies as evangelical based on their answers to the nine belief questions. Among that segment, a significantly higher proportion (90%) is likely to vote in November, and Sen. McCain holds a huge lead (61%-17%) over the Democratic nominee. Overall, just 14% of this group remains undecided regarding their candidate of choice.

Labels: Barack Obama, Cathleen Kaveny, election, evangelicals, John McCain, politics

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Friday, August 08, 2008

Religion, the Election, and the Media

By: Welton Gaddy
Thursday August 7, 2008

The Pew Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life have published a report that confirms my suspicions about the use of religion on the campaign trail. The study found that we are in the midst of an election for a Pastor-in-Chief rather than a Commander-in-Chief.

An analysis of over 13,000 news stories from January 2007 through April 2008 revealed that religion is playing a disproportionate role in this election. Religion accounted for roughly ten percent of all stories that did not focus on political strategy or tactics. By comparison, foreign policy issues garnered 14 percent of these stories, and stories about race and gender only made up 11 percent.

The United States is in the midst of two wars, one of which is costing our taxpayers $6 billion every month. Terrorism represents the greatest foreign policy crisis of our generation. At the same time, American society is being transformed as Senators Clinton and Obama challenged traditional stereotypes of who is best fit to be president. And despite these profound changes and challenges, religion is receiving almost as attention in the media as foreign policy and race/gender issues. And the scary thing is that George W. Bush, who revolutionized using religion for partisan gain, isn't even on the ballot.

There is much blame to go around that explains this troubling trend. The presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle were more willing than ever to seek the endorsement of religious leaders, incorporate religious rhetoric into their speeches, and promote their religious affiliation as a misguided proxy for sound judgment and clear vision.

Both Senators McCain and Obama had some buyer's remorse after seeking the support of controversial clergy. But candidates cannot have it both ways. They cannot continue to use clergy for political gain and then discard them when it no longer fits their agenda.

The media deserve much of the blame as well. Last summer, CNN's Soledad O'Brien asked Senator John Edwards to name his biggest sin. Multiple debate moderators asked various candidates to name their favorite Bible story.

These types of questions have no bearing over a candidate's ability to serve as president. The media are the staunchest supporters of the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech and press, yet it appears they have not read Article VI of the Constitution, which prohibits imposing a religious test for public office.

The problem is not that religion is being incorporated into the presidential campaign. Rather the problem is that religion is being used as a divisive tool instead of a unifying power. The candidates need be less concerned with appearing "holier than thou" and focus instead on explaining the role their values play in their political worldview. The media needs to stop asking irrelevant (and irreverent) questions about the candidates' religion and start asking the candidates to outline their views on the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

If we can nurture a more positive relationship between religion and politics, a survey result like this one would be encouraging rather than lamentable.

Labels: America, Barack Obama, John McCain, Pew Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, politics, religion, Welton Gaddy

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Monday, March 31, 2008

A God of War? Presidential Faith and U.S. Foreign Policy

By Lyn Boyd-Judson

The religious values held by George W. Bush have undoubtedly informed his foreign policy decisions. This simple fact should give every American voter pause.

For the past eight years, many like-minded Americans have rejoiced in the current president's conservative Christian worldview and its foreign policy consequences, rather than recognizing that this worldview is a profoundly disturbing element of his presidency. They take comfort in the belief that their president receives God's guidance in political matters, both domestic and foreign. Their logic is that if good and evil exist in our world, the tension between the two manifests in the political realm and plays out in our foreign policy.

In contrast, those Americans - both secularists and liberal Christians - who find the current president's claims of divine guidance profoundly disturbing argue that one of the key principles on which the U.S. was founded is freedom from religion in state institutions. They argue that the founding fathers were deists who advocated a natural religion based on human reason rather than divine revelation. They understand that one's religious beliefs or worldview can never truly be divorced from decision-making, but they also hold that these religious assumptions should constantly be re-evaluated by rational and factual criteria when applied to matters of state. So when it is reported that President Bush says he receives divine guidance on matters of U.S. foreign policy - for instance, that God told him to invade Iraq? - these Americans believe that all citizens, Christian or otherwise, should be profoundly disturbed, because an unjust war can never be a divine war.

This contrast between American Christian worldviews is starkly apparent in the recent media reports of controversial comments made by religious leaders connected to the current presidential candidates. Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has made inflammatory remarks about the U.S. government, suggesting that the U.S. is racist on the home front and that its foreign policy is unjust, aggressive and foments Islamic terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens. John McCain has close ties to pastors Rod Parsley and John Hagee. Parsley has claimed that Islam is a false religion that America should destroy, and John Hagee has called for bombing Iran to hasten the Christian apocalypse.

Several political pundits describe the current politico-cultural divide in the U.S. as a rift between God-fearing Christians and "secular" (read atheist) liberal intellectuals from (pick your coast). Of course, this distinction is inaccurate and misleading. The divide in American political culture over God is not so much about whether Americans believe in God as it is about how the 90 percent of Americans who believe in God? want to define his purpose in our political world. In this sense, the divide in American political culture over a presidential God is an argument between the politically left-leaning Christian who embraces a God of peace, inclusiveness, forgiveness and social justice, and the politically right-leaning Christian who embraces a God Almighty whose main attributes are judgment, the strength to vanquish enemies, and the righteous impulse to devalue - even destroy - all things not Christian. Again, which presidential God will shape the foreign policy decisions made in the Oval Office?

As Americans, regardless of our religious beliefs or political commitments, it is our duty as voters to reflect deeply on what we value in foreign policy initiatives, why we hold these values, and how we express them in the public sphere. We need reasonable voices speaking to reconcile the factions in the religio-political divide - a divide not over whether a candidate knows God, but over how Americans want to define the role of a candidate's God in a president's foreign policy. While religious values can certainly inform our moral impulses, the distinction between an exclusive or inclusive God is where war and peace often hang in the balance.

Labels: Americans, Barack Obama, Christianity, George Bush, John McCain, Lyn Boyd-Judson, politics, religion, war

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Thursday, October 04, 2007

Fear Of Religious Litmus Test Rising

McCain’s ‘Christian nation’ comments spark new concern about growing role of religion in the ’08 campaign.

James D. Besser - Washington Correspondent

The prospects for deep religious polarization in the 2008 election took a quantum leap this week in the wake of comments by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that the Constitution created America as a “Christian” nation — and the rousing defense of his comments by some Christian groups.

McCain’s comments, which produced sharp rebukes from several major Jewish groups, echoed views expressed in a recent survey conducted by the First Amendment Center, in which 65 percent of respondents said the nation’s founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation — and 55 percent said that view was enshrined in the Constitution.

The upping of the religious ante in the 2008 campaign also includes a growing rebellion by prominent Christian conservatives against GOP frontrunner Rudolph Giuliani and their threat to back a third-party candidate who meets their religious standards.

And it comes amid continuing questions about whether former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith will be a deal-breaker with many Evangelical voters, and as questions persist about the “Christian nation” views of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the emerging dark horse in the Republican ranks. It also comes as anxious Democrats ramp up their own religious campaigns, with more detailed discussions of the role of faith in their own lives.

All of that, some Jewish leaders worry, is pushing the nation toward the de facto establishment of a religious test for high office.

Earlier in the interview, he stressed his view that the “No. 1 issue people should make [in selecting a president] is, ‘will this person carry on in the Judeo-Christian principled tradition that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?’”

But his unambiguous agreement that the Constitution established a Christian nation stirred the most debate.

But some Christian groups praised McCain’s original comments – and said they could help in a presidential campaign that has been met with skepticism by evangelical voters and leaders.

But a leading Jewish Republican and McCain supporter said it was all a matter of interpretation.

The Republican Jewish Coalition offered only the faintest criticism of McCain’s comments.

Political analysts were divided on whether McCain’s comments were a verbal misfire or part of a conscious political strategy meant to revive his once-front running campaign. But many speculated that the upcoming South Carolina primary has a lot to do with it.

The 2008 presidential race took on even more of a religious charge this week with reports that leading Christian conservatives, including Focus on the Family leader James Dobson, met over the weekend and discussed the possibility of supporting a third-party candidacy because of their dissatisfaction with the current GOP field, and Giuliani in particular.

But Giuliani, according to recent polls, is running strongly among Evangelical voters despite his three marriages and his relatively moderate positions on gay rights and abortion — a trend political experts attribute to his strong image on terrorism and security.

The likeliest recipients of support from the angry Evangelical leaders, he said, is Huckabee, a Southern Baptist preacher, or Romney, who continues to work to combat the view among many Evangelicals that his Mormonism is a dangerous sect.

Labels: Christian, First Amendment Center, James D. Besser, Jewish, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mormonism, religion, Rudolph Giuliani