Poll: Religiosity in Politics

[9-10ths_Penguin]

She has admitted she would not personally have felt able to vote in favour of legalising gay marriage and that, for her, having children out of wedlock is wrong. However she has stressed she would not try to impose her personal views on the country.

These two sentences seem to contradict each other, IMO.

I'd say that how a candidate would vote when in office is always fair game for voters to consider in the election.

 

[GardenLady]

I am convinced that much religiosity in politics is mere pandering for votes and not actual deeply held faith or conviction.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I am convinced that much religiosity in politics is mere pandering for votes and not actual deeply held faith or conviction.

I'm inclined to agree, though the pandering doesn't work unless it speaks to the actual deeply held faith and conviction of the voters.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Religion for Breakfast just published a video on YouTube detailing some statistics on religious affiliation in the national United States congress. If you want to watch the video it will be here below so you can see it.

Apparently there are three major outliners in religious affiliation: Muslims, atheists and Mormons. People are less likely to vote for a candidate who is one of those three. They rate those groups poorer than others.

I'm just going to get this out of the way so people know where I stand on this issue. Pretty much every member of Earthseed is a Democrat. If it were some Earthseed progressive Democrat vs a staunch fundamentalist Christian Republican, I would still vote for the Republican, but I would not donate to the Republican's fundraisers. On the other hand, if it were both Earthseed and Republican, then I would donate, get involved and vote for that person too.

Ultimately who I vote for is mostly determined by political party, as I don't vote in primaries very often. The last primary I voted in was 2016 Republican Presidential primary and I chose John Kasich for President in that primary. Of course, I didn't get my way, and Trump won anyways, so I voted Libertarian Party for President instead now, even though I realize that the Libertarian Party is just full of crazy anarchist radicals.

I think a lot of people are going to say not important at all, but I don't believe that is entirely true for most people. Most people want to be represented by someone in their own religion, or at least someone who overall religious world view is close to their own. I intend on answering this poll with "Little importance". If it were a Christian Republican vs a Earthseed Republican, unless I personally knew the Christian Republican my vote would go towards the Earthseed Republican, so it does have some vague importance to me.

And I know John Kasich is a staunch Christian, but Earthseed is so small that finding representation for my religious beliefs isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Note: I purposefully put this in religious debates so we can debate on how important it is that a political candidate has the same religion as your religion. Please use this space and thread to discuss religiosity in politics and how important religion is to you in politics. How important is it to you that the person you vote for has the same or similar religion as you? Please discuss this topic with us below.

I voted "not important at all", but I should nuance that a bit.

The beliefs of candidates will obviously have a huge impact on my voting choices. In fact.... it might even be the most important thing of all.
I voted "not important at all", because I don't really care about religious beliefs. But I do care about beliefs overall, since beliefs will inform actions and decisions. And we vote people into office to do exactly that: act and decide.

So WHAT a candidate believes, is going to very much impact my vote.
I just don't care about the religious aspects.

If a candidate for example is against gay marriage or against abortion, that candidate won't get my vote. But it wouldn't matter at all how that person motivates that belief. Be it religiously or for other reason. It matters not.

So that's why I voted "not important at all", since the question is specifically about religion.