Zuckerman: Secular values voters are becoming an electoral force in the US just look closely at 2020s results – Palm Beach Post

Phil Zuckerman| Palm Beach Post

Thevoting patterns of religious groupsin the U.S. have been scrutinized since the presidential election for evidence of shifting allegiances among the faithful. Many have wondered if aboost in Catholic support was behind Bidens winor if adip in support among evangelicalshelped doom Trump.

But much less attention has been paid to one of thelargest growing demographics among the U.S. electorate, one that hasincreasedfrom around 5% of Americans to over 23% in the last 50 years: Nones that is, the nonreligious.

I am ascholar of secularism in the U.S., and my focus is on the social and cultural presence of secular people nonreligious peoplesuch as atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers and those who simply dont identify with any religion. They are an increasingly significant presence in American society, one which inevitably spills into the political arena.

In this last election, the emerging influence of secular voters was felt not only atthe presidential level, but also on manydown-ballot issues.

For years, both scholars and pundits have referred to the politicalimpact of values voters in America. What that designation generally refers to are religious men and women whose scripturally based values coagulate around issues such asopposing marriage equalityandwomens reproductive autonomy.

But dubbing such religious voters as values voters is a real semantic bamboozle. While it is true that many religious Americans maintain certain values that motivate their voting behavior, it is also very much the case thatsecular Americans also maintain their own strongly held values. My research suggests theyvote on these values with just as much motivationas the religious.

This played out in November in a number of ballot initiatives that have flown under the national media radar.

Voters in Washington state, for example, passed Referendum 90, which requires that students receive sex education in all public schools. This was thefirst time that such a measure was ever on a state ballot, and it passed with ease thanks, in part, to the significant number ofnonreligious votersin the Pacific Northwest.

The fact is, Washington is one of theleastreligiousstatesin theunion. Well over a third of all Washingtonians do not affiliate with any religion, more than a third never pray and almost 40% never attend religious services.

The referendums passing was helped by the fact thatnonreligious adults tend to value comprehensive sex education.Numerousstudieshavefoundthat secular Americans are significantly more likely to support comprehensive sex education in school. In his research,sociologist Mark Regnerusfoundthat secular parents were generally much more comfortable and more likely to have open and frank conversations with their children about safe sex than religious parents.

Meanwhile, voters in Oregon another Pacific Northwestern state that contains one of themost secular populationsin thecountry passed Measure 110, the first ever statewide law to decriminalize the possession and personal use of drugs.

This aligns with research showing thatnonreligious Americans aremuchmore likely to supportthe decriminalization of drugs than theirreligious peers. For instance, a 2016study from Christian polling firm Barnafound that 66% of evangelicals believe that all drugs should be illegal as did 43% of other Christians, but only 17% of Americans with no religious faith held such a view.

Secular people are generallymore trustingof scientific empiricism, andvariousstudieshaveshownthat the nonreligious aremore likelyto accept the evidence behind human-generated climate change. This translates tosupportfor politicians and policies that take climate change seriously.

It may also have factored in to the success of a November ballot measure in Denver, Colorado, to fund programs that eliminate greenhouse gases, fight air pollution and actively adapt to climate change. The ballot passed with over 62% of the vote and it is of note that Denver is one of themost secular citiesin thenation.

Meanwhile voters in California anotherareaofrelative secularity passed Proposition 14 supporting the funding of stem cell research, the state being one of only a handful that hasa publicly funded program.Pew studieshave repeatedly found that secular Americans arefar more likely than religious Americansto support stem cell research.

On issues that the religious right has held some sway in recent years, there is evidence of a counterbalance among secular value voters.

For example, while thereligioushave been more likely tooppose same-sex marriage, secular Americans are more likely to support it, and by significant margins. A recentPew studyfound that 79% of secular Americans are supportive, compared to 66% of white mainline Protestants, 61% of Catholics, 44% of Black Protestants and 29% of white evangelicals.

There are many additional values that are prominent among secular Americans. For example, theU.S. Secular Surveyof 2020 the largest survey of nonreligious Americans ever conducted, with nearly 34,000 participants found strong support for safeguarding the separation of church and state.

Other studies have found that secular Americans strongly supportwomens reproductive rights, womenworking in the paid labor force, theDACAprogram,death with dignityandopposition to the death penalty.

According to Eastern Illinois Universityprofessor Ryan Burgesdata analysis, around 80% of atheists and agnostics and 70% of those who described their religion as nothing in particular voted for Biden.

This may have been decisive. As Professor Burge argues, its completely fair to say that these shifts generated a two percentage-point swing for Biden nationwide. There were five states where the gap between the candidates was less than two percentage points (Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina). Four of those five went for the Biden and the nones were between 28% and 37% of the population in those key states.

As this past election has shown, secular values are not only alive and well, but they are more pronounced than ever. It is also noteworthy that more openly nonreligious candidates were elected to public office than ever before. According to ananalysisby the atheist author and activist Hemant Mehta, not only did every member of the secularCongressional Freethought Caucuswin reelection, but 10 state senators who are openly secular that is, they have made it publicly known that they are nonreligious were voted into office, up from seven two years ago. There is now an all-time high of 45 openly secular state representatives nationwide, according to Mehtas analysis. Every one of them is a Democrat.

Religious voters will certainly continue to vote their values and for politicians that express similar views. But so, I argue, will secular voters.

Phil Zuckerman is a professor of Sociology and Secular Studies atPitzer College. He wrote this for The Conversation.

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Zuckerman: Secular values voters are becoming an electoral force in the US just look closely at 2020s results - Palm Beach Post