Except this isn’t true. 9 of the top 10 single motherhood states voted for Trump. 8 out of 10 went Romney over Obama.
The poorest states are red and consistently have been for quite a while.
The unprotected sex thing is a problem. Also common in religious areas where abstinence only sex education is practiced and contraception is frowned upon.
Is there a shred of evidence to back up this claim?
While I agree with this statement, what’s the “fix?”
Two parent families whether same sex or not is undoubtedly superior to one parent. The idea that one parent families is a problem of the left is beyond laughable. Come on out to where I’m from in rural Kansas surrounded by rural towns and counties. Lots of single mothers with very conservative upbringings. Almost all white and all in areas where the word democrat disqualifies you for any position even class president.
The conversation went way off course from Trump 2020 and seems to be now divided between the country is or is not going to hell in a hand basket and the evils/benefits/existence of the religious right. Was this meant to stay on course and if so it might be helpful to close the cash bar. I’m okay either way, but let me know because it’s time for another round of drinks.
Yes, below. Two tables from the cdc. Unwed births and single parent homes. Broken out by race.
More effective parenting. Young people need someone to look then in the eye and tell them how to not screw up their life. The whole purpose of marriage/monogomy for the past 5000 years has been to keep men from bailing on their offspring. We need to raise boys that don’t knock a woman up and flee, and raise girls that are too smart to fall for cretin guys.
In the past we had a culture of shame and shotgun weddings to handle this problem. While not ideal it was somewhat effective. You can’t turn back the culture, so raise smarter kids is the only solution I can think of. Delayed gratification and a “think, then act” mindset.
The CDC suggests that this is a bigger problem in minority communities on a percentage basis. I didn’t find data for total unwed births by race. There could still be more given there are more white people, but they reproduce less. Suffice to say it’s a problem with poor folk of all colors.
I have a dumb white relative who has knocked up two girls who told him they “can’t get pregnant” while at the same time having multiple children from different dads already. He’s marrying the second one… So hopefully that’ll break the cycle… hopefully.
Have you considered running a minority candidate for president? Ideally one with superb oratory skills and a rock solid focus-grouped slogan. That might work out okay. 
In the age of the iPhone, good luck with that.
Thank you. To clarify, I don’t have an issue with the stats, just wanted to make sure it wasn’t anecdotal.
When I said “fix” I meant more along the lines of “what are we going to do about it.” Seems like with as widespread as a problem as this is becoming the we can certainly choose to raise our own kids this way, but we have very little impact on the whole system.
Personally I’d like to see contraception become a mainstay in people’s lives, but there’s very little chance of that currently.
Yep. LaVar Ball 2020.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Protestants mostly have no problem with contraception short of abortion. I imagine athiests wouldn’t either. As the costs of getting a child from infant to grown increase you’ll see less children being had by the middle and upper income groups. That leaves the poor… good luck.
The Chinese solved this problem already btw. Forced abortions and sterilizations are mighty effective. Damn Constitution keeps getting in the way.
Do you think you can determine the merits of a person by looking at their 2016 presidential vote? Does political party or religious affiliation tell you about a person’s moral character?
I’d answer a big NO to the above questions. Anything else just leads to partisanship or simplistic ideas of good and evil.
When people don’t like or trust their party’s candidate, AND they don’t like or trust the other party’s candidate, they tend to come home to their party. This was the situation in 2016. I don’t think you can read too much into the idea that people have given up their legitimacy as Christians by voting Trump.
Religious conservatives will continue to be a force in politics after Trump, but what that means is unclear since that category is shrinking as more people identify as “none” or unaffiliated in terms of religion.
A couple of the thoughts.
We recently saw this from Bernie, which highlights some of the upheaval and questions of religious tolerance. I find this VERY troubling. NPR.
Back to the 2016 Presidential Election -
I loved this twitter post.
Trump couldn’t crack 50% of the vote in Utah. He couldn’t get a majority in a state that hasn’t gone blue since 1964.
I don’t know if this answers your question, but here are a few observations. LDS people tend to be optimistic. There’s very little to relate to in gloomy populist rhetoric. Arrogance, womanizing or infidelity, unkind comments… obvious things that offend the values of a lot of honorable people, religious or not. The church made a public statement about religious discrimination when Trump was going on about Muslims. We have a history of experiencing that, so that certainly struck a lot of nerves. You have to be careful talking immigration with Mormons too, because we have so many LDS people who have served missions in foreign countries, speak the language and deeply love the people. That’s not to say we won’t support sane immigration policy, but statements about Mexican rapists are less likely to appeal. We tend to have such strong families, social networks and welfare programs, and we tend to poll high in distrust of government, or in not looking to government to solve problems.
I’d like to see more conservatives take a classical liberal stance in terms of public policy on social issues. I think this is the best path forward. I hoped to see Johnson pick up more of the LDS vote, but McMullin gave people an alternative to the Joker vs Poison Ivy in Utah. Salt Lake is more purple these days. They have elected a number of Dem mayors, and have their first lesbian mayor there.
LDS people certainly identify as Christian, and we sometimes get disagreement from other Christians about that, with some firmly denying our Christian status. As to your question about Mormons and Evangelicals, we are different from other Christians in several important ways, including aspects of the Nicene creed. “Mormons are biblical Christians, but they are not traditional or historic or orthodox or Trinitarian Christians,” (JB Haws). If you’re not from the western part of the US, you’re much less likely to have exposure to people of my faith.
END POLITICS.
Not to Threadjack this, or create a religious debate. I won’t engage in arguing about my faith. Putting this here in the interest of religious understanding - Comparative Religion. This is by JB Haws. Should Mormons Be Considered Fellow Christians, On Faith.
"Yes, there are some theological differences, but the problem is these denials give the mistaken impression that Mormons do not believe in a divine Jesus. In the words of Mormon historian Philip Barlow, Mormons should be seen as “Bible-believing Christians with a difference.” At stake here is public understanding. A recent nationwide poll showed a 75 percent public “uncertainty rate” as to whether Mormons believe in both Jesus Christ and the Bible. That’s the rub.
In today’s religiously pluralistic America, the importance of mutual understanding cannot be overstated. Misunderstandings often become fodder for fear and prejudice, barriers to cooperation and empathy. Still, many conservative, evangelical Christians balk at calling Mormons “Christian” because they worry this could blur the reality — and it’s an all-important, salvation-on-the-line issue for many evangelicals — that Latter-day Saints do not subscribe to the traditional, creedal formulations behind a Trinitarian God. Mormons do not deny this difference. In fact, they are quick to emphasize it. While still using the language of God’s “omni-“ attributes, Latter-day Saints also believe God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are beings of shape and dimension — each individual in form, but perfectly united in their full divinity.
Yet Mormons are concerned that many people outside of evangelical circles simply hear “Mormons aren’t Christian” to mean “Mormons don’t believe in Jesus,” or, more specifically, “Mormons don’t believe Jesus is Savior and Lord.” Both groups worry, in essence, about the same thing: correct public understanding of bedrock theology. In reality, neither a “yes” nor a “no” answer to the “Are Mormons Christian?” question will satisfy all. But perhaps adding another term could. That term is “biblical.” We’ve already found it useful to modify “Christian” — “evangelical,” or “mainline,” or “Orthodox” — to bring additional clarity to our increasingly pluralistic society. So a helpful answer to, “Are Mormon Christians?” could be, “Mormons are biblical Christians, but they are not traditional or historic or orthodox or Trinitarian Christians.” This answer highlights both fidelity to the Bible — something important to Mormons — and difference –something so crucial for evangelical Christians.
Here are 5 Reasons why “biblical” works in describing Mormons:
•1• Mormons believe the Bible to be the word of God. In overwhelming numbers, practicing Mormons profess deep faith in the Holy Bible. Pew found in 2007 that 92 percent of Mormon respondents believed the Bible to be the “word of God.” Officially, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unequivocally affirms the divinity of the Bible. In the words of one of the Church’s 12 apostles, Jeffrey R. Holland, “We love and revere the Bible. The Bible is the word of God. It is always identified first in our canon, our ‘standard works.’” Without a doubt, encountering the idea of an expanded “canon” of “standard works” might be the point where many Christians stop reading, but the argument here is that this should not rule out seeing Mormons as sincere Bible believers. Consider this: hundreds of thousands of Mormon teenagers around the world attend daily religion classes (Mormons call this “seminary”). Two of the four seminary years are devoted to the study of the Bible.
•2• Mormons’ beliefs about the Bible as the word of God functionally align with evangelical Christian beliefs about the Bible. In the same 2007 survey mentioned earlier, Pew found that Mormons and evangelicals polled very closely in their responses about overall belief in the Bible as the “word of God”: Mormons at 92 percent and evangelicals at 89 percent. Those who resist calling Mormons “biblical” might bring up the LDS Church’s Eighth Article of Faith: “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly” (Article of Faith 8). Though, as BYU religion professor Robert Millet aptly noted, functionally this caveat for Mormons is no more an assault on the Bible’s trustworthiness than article X of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy might be for, say, evangelicals. The 1978 Chicago Statement, signed by notable evangelical Christian thinkers, asserts that divine “inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy ” — but, importantly, not perfect accuracy. “We further affirm,” the Chicago Statement continues, “that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.” This “to the extent” sentiment in the Chicago Statement would be an appropriate rephrasing of the Mormon “as far as it is translated correctly.” But Mormons are not inerrantists, so it’s no surprise that evangelicals polled at a much higher rate in believing the Bible should be taken “literally, word for word.” Yet 25 percent of evangelicals still said that while the Bible is definitely the word of God, “not everything in the Bible should be taken literally, word for word.” Which brings up another point: there are intra-evangelical debates over the Bible. Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith argued that Christian unity over “biblicism” only works in the evangelical world because of “pervasive interpretive pluralism.” Broad interpretive approaches are tolerated within that world without such pluralism jeopardizing one’s status as a Bible-believing Christian. And Mormon approaches to the Bible fit within that tolerated diversity. New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg reacted to Christian Smith by arguing for evangelical unity “concerning the full deity and full humanity of Jesus, about the moral attributes of God, about the universal sinfulness of humanity (as distinct from the origins of that universality), about Christ’s bodily resurrection and bodily return, or about the centrality of a love ethic.” Latter-day Saints—individually and institutionally—heartily affirm those same Bible fundamentals. Beyond that, Mormons and other Christians both choose which Bible passages to take literally and which to take figuratively — and those choices may be different because they read the Bible through different interpretive lenses: ecumenical creeds, the writings of church fathers, the “Great Tradition” for many Christians and modern revelation and additional scriptural books for Latter-day Saints. But this is not a question of allegiance to the Bible itself, since, so often, theological divergences are really at that “lens” level. Thus Father Richard John Neuhaus once remarked, to one of my colleagues, “There needs to be more conversation between Latter-day Saint Christians and Nicene Christians.”
•3• The Book of Mormon self-consciously sees itself as supporting the Bible’s trustworthiness. Regardless of how one feels about the historicity or antiquity of the Book of Mormon or the role Joseph Smith played in the book’s production, one thing that cannot be denied about the book is that its internal logic is focused on bolstering the Bible’s witness of Jesus Christ’s divinity. It seems likely that many readers from outside the Latter-day Saint tradition might be surprised to find that, in the words of one of the Book of Mormon’s prophet record keepers, “This [the Book of Mormon] is written for the intent that ye may believe that [the Bible — the record of the Jews]” (Mormon 7:9). The Book of Mormon sees itself as a second witness to the reality of Bible figures such as Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Mary, John the Baptist — and, especially, Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon calls Jesus Christ “God Himself” and affirms his miraculous ministry, his redemptive death, and his glorious resurrection. (Incidentally — and not unrelatedly, it seems — Pew found that 96 percent of Mormons and 88 percent of evangelicals agree that “miracles still occur as in ancient times.”)
•4• Joseph Smith’s theological project was, at its heart, Bible-based. Again, the surprise: two of Mormonism’s founding prophet’s most quintessential theological “innovations” — Joseph Smith’s vision of a multi-tiered heaven and his rationale for proxy religious rites performed in temples for deceased ancestors — are thoroughly Bible-based. The “vision of the three degrees of glory,” what is now Doctrine and Covenants 76 in Mormon scripture, is a vision of the afterlife that, Mormons believe, the Lord expressed to Joseph Smith in the language of a string of Biblical passages: John 5:29, 1 Corinthians 3:22-23 and 15:40-42, 2 Corinthians 12:2-4, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, Hebrews 12:22-24, Revelation 22:15, and more. Joseph Smith presented this theophany as one that validated and unlocked — and grew out of — the truths of the Bible. The same could be said about the basis for Mormons’ proxy temple work — like baptisms for the dead, mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:29. Joseph Smith explained these rites in terms of Jesus’ granting of keys to bind on earth and in heaven (Matthew 16:16-19), in terms of Peter’s statement that a disembodied Jesus preached to deceased souls in prison (1 Peter 3:18-20 and 4:6), and in terms of Elijah’s prophesied turning the hearts of children to their fathers (Malachi 4:5-6). Here’s a helpful analogy. Bible scholars Roger Olson and Christopher Hall acknowledge that the Bible does not use the word “trinity” or explicitly spell out the doctrine, but that early church fathers found in Bible passages the “seeds that blossomed,” when nourished by Providence, into that doctrine. Likewise, Latter-day Saints would be comfortable saying that Joseph Smith found biblical “seeds that blossomed,” when nourished by revelation, into distinct Mormon doctrines. Rootedness in the Bible is key in both cases.
•5• Mormons celebrate the Bible’s witness of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Stephen Robinson, retired BYU religion professor, wrote, “Though Evangelicals often refuse to believe it, Latter-day Saints accept all biblical teaching on the nature of God and Christ, provided these are stated in their biblical forms rather than in their postbiblical, creedal forms.” Pew found that 98 percent of Latter-day Saints in the survey believed in the resurrection of Jesus. The LDS Church’s foundational, organizing document, the revelation known as the “Articles and Covenants” (now section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants), reads, “the Almighty God gave his Only Begotten Son, as it is written in those scriptures which have been given of him,” that “he was crucified, died, and rose again the third day,” and that “justification through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” and “sanctification through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” are “just and true, to all those who love and serve God with all their mights, minds, and strength.”
•• Reasonable disagreements ••
Mormons and other Christians would be well served by approaching theological differences with more charity from both sides — well served by an attitude of “I don’t agree with your belief on this, but I acknowledge that your position represents a reasonable interpretation from a biblical starting point.” Using the category of “biblical Christians” or “Bible-believing Christians” to describe Mormons and evangelicals (and, of course, others!) could go a long way in creating this kind of opening. This mutual acknowledgement would highlight common ground that technical squabbles over the “Christian” label obscure. Then the work of understanding real differences, rather than getting stuck on inaccurate assumptions, can take place. Here’s hoping for a religious language revolution that breaks down barriers to conversation rather than reinforces them.
Perhaps not. But they have some serious 'splaining to do, Lucy. Just like a budget is a statement of values, so is a vote.
I would point out that 1) this speaks well of the Mormons writ large, and 2) it suggests that Mormons-writ-large agree with my argument concerning votes-as-values-statements.
I wholly believe that. Unfortunately they’re not the ones in Congress.
Thank you, thank you, THANK you, @anon71262119 for the input!
I have clearly stated that I don’t get into two types of threads:
Religious ones and
Abortion threads.
And as those whom have been on this site a while know; I was (and am) a strong supporter of President Obama (imperfections and all). I often thought that “The Right” (in General) and the “Evangelical Right” (specifically) applied a special harshness and judgement to the man that in turn was not applied to Trump.
President Obama has proven to be a man who can fight his own Battles…and history will weed out facts and falsehoods like it often does.
I bring this up because this is why “religion” was brought into the topic by me. Here was a once-married man…with a beautiful family…and no public scandals to speak of…who seemed to embrace “family values” more than Trump ever has…yet by some he was viewed not only as anti-American…but NON-American… and in some cases even the Anti-Christ incarnate…
It just hit a raw nerve, @anon71262119.
Best to move on.
Trump is President. It’s time to let him forge his own Legacy.
Again…THANK YOU for the insights @anon71262119!
What do we need Congress for? Contraceptives are REALLY cheap (compared to some other drugs).
We can increase their use without government.
To stop cutting/eliminating programs designed to reach out to inner city kids and provide contraception and education on safe sex.
To be fair, most of this stuff probably boils down to the GOP at a state level. So it’s probably less about the national level Congress.
Indeed. Let’s start with the areas that demonize them and the ones that practice abstinence only education which is proven to be less effective
In theory Trump should have been everything religious people stood against.
I could probably go on but those off the top of my head. Evangelicals supported him in record numbers.
I’ll fire up the Cessna. We can air drop BC on poor neighborhoods with instruction pamphlets tied to the box.
I’m sorry guys, but I just couldn’t let this pass.
Trump spoke at some Faith-Based Conference yesterday sponsored by a Mega-Baptist Church in Dallas. (The Pastor of which, was VERY critical of Romney’s Faith and belief’s when he ran, by the way, Puff).
President’s tend to speak in front of friendly audiences; so I am okay with that.
However; when Jerry Falwell Jr.; (the President of Liberty University); gets on television and goes on and on about “finally” having a “God Fearing, Christian man in the White House”…it was like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.
I’ll get over it.
Again; Trump has truly taken American Politics into the realm of the surreal…where good is evil…and evil is good…and Donald J. Trump is considered a “God Fearing, Christian Man”…
Given his behaviour and apparent lack of faith… perhaps he should fear God.