Nonreligious Americans Remain Far Underrepresented In Congress

[rug]

House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid bow their heads in prayer in this 2015 photo. All three are Christians, as are more than 90 percent of congressional members. Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

January 3, 2017
2:55 PM ET
Danielle Kurtzleben

One in five Americans is religiously unaffiliated. Yet just one of 535 members of the new Congress is.

That's what the latest data from the Pew Research Center show on the opening day of the 115th Congress. The nation's top legislative body remains far more male and white than the rest of the U.S. population as well, but religion is one of the more invisible areas where legislators in Washington simply aren't representative of the people they represent.

Only Arizona Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema admits to being "unaffiliated," which Pew defines as people who are atheist, agnostic or who describe their religion as "nothing in particular." That means only 0.2 percent of Congress is unaffiliated, compared with 23 percent of U.S. adults. That group is faster-growing than any religious group in America, as Pew found in 2015.

Meanwhile, nearly 91 percent of congressional members are Christian, compared with 71 percent of U.S. adults. Here's a full breakdown of how Congress' religious affiliations compare with those of the U.S. population.

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/03/508037656/non-religious-americans-remain-far-underrepresented-in-congress

http://www.pewforum.org/2017/01/03/faith-on-the-hill-115/

[AtheistCrusader]

1. I found him! Second from the right, back row!

(I kid, I kid)

[rug]

2. That's Waldo.

He took his hat off for the occasion.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Can you use this to explain the "dull, broad-based hostility towards religion" you detect

in the Democrats? Or how "voters who are liberal and religious are ignorantly ignored" with all these religious Democrats representing them?

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/1218242197#post47

[rug]

4. No, it's inapposite.

That phrase refers to alleged supporters of the Democratic part, primarily on the internet, who consistently oppose Democratic outreach to believers. You, for reasons of your own, attribute it to Democratic candidates.

BTW, did you know Democratic members of Congress have a higher percentage of Catholics than republicans?

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Huh? All that whining about the Democratic party not reaching out to Christians

was actually about Democratic supporters not reaching out? Where was that in the article? So, when it says "a vote is a vote, and Democrats would be wise to look everywhere for the votes that might have meant victory in 2016", you don't think they're talking about candidates looking for votes, but people on the internet?

How does that work? How does an internet supporter of the Democratic party get votes? Is there some parallel online voting system that you know about, and the rest of us have not heard of?

Or is it possibly, just possibly, that the article is not about supporters, internet or otherwise, but those in the party structure, and the candidates, who are, as we see once more (though you ignored this the first time) overwhelmingly religious?

Could it be possible that you're ... wrong?

[rug]

7. If you're talking about the last cycle,

it's unclear how many nonreligious Democrats supported the eventual nominee after the primaries.

Could it be possible that you're ... flailing?

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. I'm not talking about a cycle. I'm talking about a couple of articles that you linked to

Why are you bringing a cycle into this? First you claim that when people talk about what the Democratic party should do to get votes, they mean how should Democratic supporters talk on the internet, which is pretty stupid; now you think that I'm talking about an electoral cycle, or how many nonreligious Democrats supported Hillary. Well, we know the religiously unaffliated voted for her in larger numbers than any other specified group apart from Jews; we have polls from before the election saying things like:

Like her GOP opponent, Clinton claims the allegiance of several faith segments. Among them are notional Christians (i.e., people who consider themselves to be Christian but are not born again – the largest of the three Christian-oriented niches, constituting a segment she leads by a 48% to 36% margin); people aligned with non-Christian faiths (among whom she has a 37% to 30% lead); atheists and agnostics (61% to 18%); and Catholics (45% to 35%).

https://www.barna.com/research/the-faith-and-ideology-of-trump-and-clinton-supporters/#

Trump does better among parents (46% to 32%), married women (44% to 41%), lower-class households (53% to 37%), and the religious, among whom Clinton's support never tops 38%. Among those who express no religion, Clinton handily beats Trump 63% to 16%.

http://www.investors.com/politics/trump-leads-clinton-by-one-point-going-into-debate-in-ibdtipp-tracking-poll/

Trump holds 78 percent support among white evangelical Protestants, 77 percent among conservatives, 68 percent among rural voters and 59 percent among white men. Clinton answers with 81 percent support among liberals, 67 percent of those identifying with no religion, 60 percent of those in urban areas and 72 percent among nonwhites.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/01/post-abc-tracking-poll-clinton-falls-behind-trump-in-enthusiasm-but-has-edge-in-early-voting/?utm_term=.8078a48604d7

and so on. So we can take a pretty good guess that the nonreligious Democrats supported Clinton, since you're suddenly unsure.

It's your sudden diversion into "how did nonreligious Democrats vote?" that looks like flailing. The article you link to in the OP shows how the religious are overrepresented in Congress, and the nonreligious unrepresented, but, instead of considering how this might affect the validity of your idea that Democrats are hostile to the religious, you switch track to claiming, despite well known evidence, that it's unclear how nonreligious Democrats voted.

[rug]

9. Because you said "the Democratic party not reaching out to Christians".

The election, scarcely two months old, is highly relevant.

You really shouldn't be calling my posts "pretty stupid" while asking this: "Why are you bringing a cycle into this?"

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. It's not about any cycle. Your OP talks about the under-representation *remaining*

for the nonreligious (and therefore over-representation of the religious, too). On your red herring of how the nonreligious vote, we can see from the Pew article about exit polls that they consistently vote for the Democratic candidate in large numbers. There are been no significant change in this cycle.

"Pretty stupid" was a bit of British understatement.

[rug]

11. The OP is about the new Congress. Elected this cycle.

I would say a huuuuge understatement.

[True Dough]

6. Wow! This is the new disparity that should be getting more attention

Rightfully there has been focus on the lack of minorities in congress and underrepresented women in congress. Every time politics and religion become intertwined at the federal level, we should be making more noise about this issue as well.