Thursday, October 15, 2009
Liberals Ignore Non-Religious Canadians at their own Peril
It is high time those Liberals who encourage the party to court evangelicals address the non-religious elephant in the living room. When it comes to religion, by far the quickest growing group in absolute terms is non-religious Canadians. 16.2 % of Canadians describe themselves as non-religious in the 2001 census; this represented a 44% increase since 1991 and increase of nearly 1.5 million. According to 2008 stats Canada study by 2005, that number had reached 22% amongst those over 15. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-630-x/2008001/article/10650-eng.pdf There are far more non-religious Canadians than there are evangelicals Canadians and non-religious Canadians are younger. Your average non-religious person is 31. Your average baptist, for example, is 39. Furthermore, the extent of such a trend is masked by the fact that the overwhelming majority of Quebecers still identify as being Catholic even as Church attendance in Quebec continues to plummet there and 43% of Canadians did not attend a place of worship in the last year. Add to all of this the fact that growth of non -religious voters is concentrated in the very areas in which the Liberals stand a chance of winning some seats. For instance, 42% of Vancouverites describe themselves as non-religious.
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and religion has no place in politics!!! keep it separate - thank you.
Attacking people who hold religious views and using props via a Dinosaur have turned off every group.
The attacks on Day, Goodyear are well documented and intolerance will cost more votes at the ballot box.
Wafers?
The Liberals are polling 25% for many reasons and intolerance, smears is just one of many.
Your analysis misses a couple of points that take away from your argument, from the viewpoint of the big parties. As an atheist myself, I would love it if "ignore us at your peril" was an effective argument, but there is are a couple of reasons why the big parties get away with ignoring us.
1) The non-religious are not any more likely to vote than the general population, but evangelicals are more likely to vote, and just as importantly, also more likely to make political donations.
2) Evangelicals are more likely to vote as a block; the non-religious are scattered acrosss the political spectrum.
As you point out, the non-religious tend to be clustered more in the lower age groups, which works against us, since the lower age groups are also less likely to vote, and are rather substantially less likely to make political donations.
The thing that makes evangelicals attractive to political parties is the fact that there are certain issues for which politicians can push their buttons, and get them to vote together, regardless of where those individuals stand on other issues. In contrast, there aren't really any strong unifying issues for the non-religious crowd. One could say that many non-religious people are concerned about religion in politics, but even this is not a big enough concern for most non-religious people, in Canada, to get us to vote as a block.
Making fun of walks with Dinsours Day was good politics in 2000 and it is good politics now.
Anyway, you seem to have a very strange idea what constitutes "intolerance". Goodyear was rightly mocked for not having any idea what is evolution is and Day was mocked because creationist views are stupid. Mocking Goodyear is no different than mocking Hedy Fry for claiming that there are cross burnings in Prince George.
"The thing that makes evangelicals attractive to political parties is the fact that there are certain issues for which politicians can push their buttons, and get them to vote together, regardless of where those individuals stand on other issues."
All true, but when it comes down to a particular contentious policy getting the likes of McVety to sing your praises hurts more than it helps. Their arguments galvanise non religious voters in ways that arguments from fellow non-religious voters do not and they drive right leaning libertarians around the bend. Pitting the National Post, for example, against the social cons is in the Liberals interests.
What sorts of policies do you think would help court atheists?
Policies?
First stop attacking and making fun of Christians.
Who is the poster boy for the Liberals and may have his fingerprints all over the wafer story?
Who pushed the wafer story as an Irving cover up to secure funding for ship building after the full retraction and apology from the newspaper?
An example OBAMA supported the traditional view of marriage in the last election.
The Liberals (Cauchon Justice Minister) brag about same sex marriage changes.
I have not read the McGill study recently but you should look at those two for more specific ideas.
(I personally think it is the smears and attacks)
"What sorts of policies do you think would help court atheists?"
It is not a matter of courting atheists. The term non-religious covers a lot more than just atheists by the way. The "non religious" are diverse lot and besides I do not believe pandering to anyone. What I like to see is the Liberals engage in needed debate (e.g., euthanasia) regardless of what evangelicals think. Not only are there far more non-religious Canadians than evangelicals,evangelicals are not to be feared. They are not nearly as monolithic as they are sometimes made out to be and when it comes to debate their social conservatism is certainly nothing to be afraid of. In most cases their arguments are laughable. The Liberals should welcome the prospect of nimrods such a Charles McVety going to bat for Stephen Harper. Furthermore what Liberal strategists seem to forget is that over the last 6 years Liberal prospects have tended to rise and fall depending on how aggressive they pushed socially liberally policies. Canadians loved "cool Canada", the thought of Democrats leaving "Jesus Land" and pundits prematurely wrote Stephen Harper off after the SSM in the summer of 2005 after he spent months offering up intellectually, legally and morally bankrupt arguments in "defense" of marriage.
"Who is the poster boy for the Liberals and may have his fingerprints all over the wafer story?
What does this have to do with the subject at hand? There was a shot of Stephen Harper that seem to suggest that he did not consume the "host" and the media picked it because was a very slow news day. If the Liberals were behind this, then they are even more pathetic then I thought. It was a nothing story and what really annoyed me was how the news media kept referring to the cracker given to Stephen Harper as "the host".
"I personally think it is the smears and attacks."
You can think it was the man in the moon. Thinking does not make it so. There is no evidence that Kinsella's words hurt the Liberals. Perhaps your confusion stems from the fact that the evangelical fellowship of Canada implied that the decision not to pursue Ontario SSM decision represented an attack on evangelicals. Their paranoid; most evangelicals might not have liked SSM and might have voted against the Liberals as a result. However, I doubt such parnoia was widespread.
PS you mentioned Goodyear's ignorance of grade 11 biology. It should be pointed out that alas the Liberals did not say anything. The only ones to call him on it were a few pundits.
Koby you can pretend Kinsella did not appear on National TV with a Dinosaur to mock Stockwell Day.
You can pretend Bob Fife did not say what he said the Liberals did it.
You can deny the outrage from the REPORTERS who did not mention anything about the host. Someone added it afterwards.
You can deny the priest who was called was asked a hypothetical question.
You can pretend the CBC did not spend two weeks on the fake story without checking a single fact.
You can deny the findings of FACT and the investigation proved it was a fabricated story.
You can deny how Warren Kinsella and several Lib bloggers blamed the CPC shipbuilding contracts as pressure to force an apology.
Koby you can also suggest Liberals have not jumped on small or silly issues and tried to create faux crisis over and over again.
Additional bodybags was ordered by the nurse as part of her supplies.
The young lady suing for $2.5 million has a younger sister, the consular staff, CPC are racist? How many cases do we have on an annual basis?
The expression "bear false witness" means something.
I did google here are the two links.
Read the studies on why Liberals have lost Catholic support. McGill study.
http://ces-eec.mcgill.ca/documents/Anatomy%20of%20a%20Liberal%20Defeat.pdf
http://www.evangelicalfellowship.ca/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=187
"Koby you can pretend Kinsella did not appear on National TV with a Dinosaur to mock Stockwell Day."
I did not pretend that he did. I saw it and laughed. The notion that the earth is 6,000 years old is in the same ball park as notion that the earth is flat. Stockwell Day deserved to be mocked. Kinsella's skit was priceless.
What I took issue with was the notion that Kinsella's words had any impact whatsoever on Liberal fortunes in 2006 and 2008. The vast majority of people, evangelicals, included know next to nothing about politics. As a political science rule of thumb only around 10% of the populace has a clue. The notion that huge numbers of evangelicals switched parties 6 to 8 years after the fact is absurd.
"You can deny the outrage from the REPORTERS who did not mention anything about the host. Someone added it afterwards."
The story is akin to outrage over someone being invited out for dinner and not finishing what is placed before him. How rude and how not newsworthy. Anyway, of course, the reporters talked it up. What are they going do pan the story on air. As for your implication that media is somehow pro Liberal such a claim is laughable. If 2004 and 2006 McGill media studies were not enough to put such clap trap to bed, CTV'S little stunt last election and nomination of CTVs Jaba the Hut Duffy to the Senate sure should.
"You can pretend the CBC did not spend two weeks on the fake story without checking a single fact.
You can deny the findings of FACT and the investigation proved it was a fabricated story."
Your paranoid delusions about the media are tin foil hat material. The story was done in two days -- June 8th and 9th to be precise. Anyway, watch the video. Not that it matters to me in the slightest, but it sure looks like he did not consume "the host". That said, I am willing to take the word of those who were there and eventually so was everybody else.
"Koby you can also suggest Liberals have not jumped on small or silly issues and tried to create faux crisis over and over again."
That is what political parties do. It is called POLITICS and however bad the Liberals are the Conservartives are a thousand times worse. I seem to remember months Dingwall's name being dragged through the mud even though he made Canada a mint and did nothing wrong other than to choose his words badly.
"The young lady suing for $2.5 million has a younger sister, the consular staff, CPC are racist? How many cases do we have on an annual basis?"
It is not the oringal decision that raised eyebrows. It is the reluctence of Cannon and company showed even when it was apparent that something was amiss. Taken by itself this does not mean much, but taken together with what has happened elsewhere it means a good deal.
If you recall, they argued that a man LIVING in the Canadian embassy in Sundan could not be allowed back into Canada because he was a security threat.
Then there is Omar Kadr: Kadr is the last western nation left at Gitmo, the case against so full of holes it is wonder how the yanks dare proceed and Kadr was 15 at the time. Let me guess as a Conservative you believe that no matter what age that if you do the crime you do the time. A 15 year old enough to understand the consquences of his actions; he is just not old enough to drink, consent to sex with anyone over 18, marry, drive, and quit school.
"The expression "bear false witness" means something."
Does term DNA mean anything. The fact that DNA proves who she says she is is enough for most people to give credence to her story, but apparently you are still not sold.
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