toledoblade.com --

The election of Barack Obama as president is a signal that the religious right is on the way out, according to several experts reviewing a newly released poll on the religious vote.

But don't look for its successor to be the religious left.

The data indicate Mr. Obama's victory was aided by the emergence of a new and diverse religious coalition that views fighting poverty, protecting the environment, and promoting world peace to be critical issues - not just abortion rights and same-sex marriage upon which the religious right has focused.

"I think we've learned many lessons from the mistakes of the religious right and don't want to repeat them," the Rev. Jim Wallis, chief of Sojourners: Christians for Justice and Peace, said yesterday.

"We don't want to just become a new religious left, partly because left and right are political categories, they are not religious categories. … Let's not go left or right. Let's go deeper."

The poll, conducted by Washington-based Public Religion Research, examined the reasons given by people of faith for voting for either Democrat Mr. Obama or Republican candidate John McCain.

Robert Jones, president of Public Religion Research, said one of the key findings was that a majority of both evan-gelical Christians (55 percent) and Catholics (51 percent) said agendas best reflecting their values include the issues of poverty, the environment, war and peace, abortion rights, and same-sex marriage. In contrast, only 21 percent of evangelicals and 13 percent of Catholics said a narrower agenda focused on abortion rights and same-sex marriage best reflected their values.

The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, said the election shows "there are cracks occurring in the religious right. The cracks occur because millions of evangelicals are concerned about hyperbolic rhetoric and the partisan attitude that pervades their public speech."

Mr. Wallis has been promoting progressive evangelical views for decades and said in yesterday's phone-based news conference that the postelection poll was "very heartening."

"This shows that people of faith … are saying they want a broader agenda that is inclusive of all these convictions," he said.

"For example, there is still a deep conviction on the sanctity of life, but that won't be reduced anymore to just abortion. Thirty thousand kids died again today of poverty and disease. That's a life issue too for all these folks. Darfur. The war in Iraq is a life issue too … Climate change is a life issue too. So we're seeing this consistent ethic of life being operative now, and poverty and the environment and war and peace are now fundamental values."

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement this week saying that bishops are looking forward to working with President-elect Obama, but warned him not to pursue "aggressive pro-abortion policies" that would "alienate tens of millions of Americans" and "be seen by many as an attack on the free exercise of their religion."

Cardinal George said the election was decided primarily on economic issues and should not be "misinterpreted ideologically as a referendum on abortion."

The new poll reported white evangelicals, who made up 23 percent of the vote, supported Mr. McCain 75 percent to 24 percent. Yet Mr. Obama won decisively.

Mr. Wallis said the results show the influence of this new religious coalition.

"For the first time in an election, the religion story is not only about white evangelicals," he said. "What it portends for the future is very interesting. We are seeing the emergence now of what I would call a new faith coalition."

The new coalition includes black and Latino voters, younger white Christians, new evangelical pastors and students, progressive Catholics, and Protestants, Mr. Wallis said.

The poll reported that while only 21 percent of white evangelicals voted for Mr. Obama, of those who did, 39 percent considered him to be friendly to their religion and 39 percent felt he shares their values.

Among Catholics, 54 percent voted for Mr. Obama while 64 percent said the Democratic candidate shares their values.

"This poll offers compelling evidence that Catholics support a broad social justice agenda that reflects a consistent life ethic and a concern for the common good," said Alexia Kelley, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. "It is a mistake to treat abortion and social-justice issues separately. Abortion is a social-justice issue."

Among all religious groups, 58 percent considered Mr. McCain friendly to religion and 54 percent said Mr. Obama was friendly to religion. Mr. Obama's numbers in that category are 16 points higher than his party's; only 38 percent of voters said the Democratic Party was friendly to religion.

The survey also reported Mr. McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate proved to be a net loss for the party. The Alaska governor increased support among 30 percent of evangelicals, but decreased support among every other religious group and among political independents, according to poll data.

The most important issue by far among religious voters was the same as that of the general public: the economy. Seventy percent of all religious groups cited the economy as the most important issue, followed by the Iraq war (35 percent), health care (31 percent), terrorism (19 percent), abortion rights (14 percent), and same-sex marriage (6 percent).

Mr. Wallis and Ms. Kelley said they will hold the Obama administration to its promises.

"We're people of faith and we will offer our prayers and our support to this new administration, people who voted for it or not," Mr. Wallis said. "But part of our responsibility is it is a two-way street."

The Public Religion Research survey polled 1,277 voters between Nov. 5 and Nov. 7 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent. It was sponsored by Faith in Public Life, Sojourners, and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

In other postelection polls, the American Muslim Taskforce reported that 95 percent of American Muslims participated in the Nov. 4 election and 89 percent voted for Mr. Obama.

The Pew Research Center reported that Mr. Obama received 78 percent of the Jewish vote.

Contact David Yonke at:
dyonke@theblade.com
or 419-724-6154.

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