The GOP’s Toxic God Squad

Younger generations are leaving organized religion in larger number than ever, aging evangelicals are literally - and thankfully - dying off, and a majority of Americans support same sex marriage, yet one would never get this impression if you listen to would be GOP 2016 presidential candidates who seem gripped in a contest to see who can most prostitute them self to the Christofascists and most make a mockery of the concept of freedom of religion for all citizens.  A column in the New York Times looks at this disgusting phenomenon.  Here are column excerpts:

Another presidential campaign is taking shape, and potential Republican candidates are beginning to speak with extra care — and sometimes with censorious hellfire — about certain social issues. As ever, they’re bowing to a bloc of voters described as Christian conservatives.

But these voters are a minority of Christians. They’re not such representative conservatives.

They have a disproportionate sway over the Republican Party. And because of that, they have an outsize influence on the national debate.

That’s an inescapable takeaway from new data compiled by the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonpartisan group that interviewed more than 50,000 Americans last year.

The institute looked at three issues: gay marriage, abortion and immigration.  It gave me a sneak peek at the results, being released in full on Wednesday, and also did some special analyses.

Among religious groups with large populations, white evangelical Protestants, who represent 18 percent of all Americans but 36 percent of self-identified Republicans, according to the survey, stood out as the most conservative.

If you looked at the responses of all Republicans minus this evangelical subset, you saw a remarkably different party.

Among all Republicans, 35 percent favored the legalization of gay marriage, while 58 percent opposed it. But subtract the white evangelicals and the spread changes: 45 to 47. 

Just 39 percent of all Republicans said that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 58 percent said that it shouldn’t. Subtract the white evangelicals and again there’s another nearly even split: 48 to 49 percent. So the party’s anti-choice ardor makes sense chiefly in terms of evangelicals.

[W]hite evangelical Protestants “tend to be outliers today on issues like same-sex marriage,” he said.

In terms of allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, 77 percent of Jews and at least 60 percent of all three Catholic subgroups — white Catholics, Hispanic Catholics and “other non-white Catholics” — said they favored it. So did more than 60 percent of white mainline Protestants.  But white evangelical Protestants?  Just 28 percent.

[W]hen survey respondents were asked whether immigrants “strengthen the U.S.” or “are a burden,” the only religious group in which fewer people said “strengthen” than “burden” was white evangelical Protestants. The spread was 36 to 53 percent.  Among all Americans, the spread was the opposite, with 55 percent saying “strengthen” and 36 saying “burden.”

Suffice it to say, white evangelicals are a toxic influence on politics and a toxic element in today's America.  It is far past time that the GOP cease prostituting itself to these modern day Pharisees.