politics, usa, electabilityI’ve recently been reading a lot about Atheists being a political minority. I wanted to throw out an idea, and see if anyone knows of any research on it. Is it possible that atheists are a political minority because we’re less likely to identify as “centrists”. Most of the Atheists I’ve met identify with either the Libertarian party, or are at least as left as Democratic-socialists, or the modern Green-Party.. Is there is significant overlap, so much so that we can accredit our non-electability to our party affiliations rather than our religious standing?
No, the reason atheists are unelectable in the US has to do with the fact that the Christian majority believe their morals come from God, and do not believe that a non-religious person can be moral. Voters obviously do not want unethical scoundrels running the state or country. It’s purely a faith-driven thing.
I don’t think atheists do associate with minor parties disproportionately more than the population in general, in the United States at least. Perhaps there is a bias away from the Republican Party over the last couple of decades, as it has become more and more dominated by Christian conservatives over the years, but this wasn’t always the case, of course. I don’t have the time to dig up any statistics to back this up, but I’ll let you know if I find anything!
Furthermore, I’m not sure what minor parties would appeal to nonbelievers. There are “green” political parties that are usually pretty humanist in their outlook, but they aren’t going to appeal to every atheist since atheists are not a homogeneous grouping of people. Apart from their nonbelief in a supreme being, atheists do not all uniformly think the same way. For example, nonbelief does not necessarily equate with fiscal conservatism versus fiscal liberalism, or social conservatism versus social liberalism or much of anything else that I can think of. I, for one, have been described as a “soak-the-rich peacenik lefty” (as per the stereotype), but I certainly don’t believe that applies to us all!
Finally, a large number of minority parties would probably seem decidedly scary to a great number of atheists: generally speaking, most political parties in the United States that feature the name “independence” or “constitutional” usually exist to strip minority groups of their “independence” or to deprive people of their “constitutional” rights.
Edit
I’ve been looking high and low for statistics on voting patterns for atheists and haven’t found anything yet.
Does anybody know if it’s possible to conduct polls on Stack Exchange? Maybe we could conduct our own poll and get some real statistics…
It is unlikely that Atheism causes those candidates to be unelectable. However, the alternate candidates faith makes him or her more electable. If one candidate runs on a plank involving atheism, he is likely a shaky candidate and will come across as one. A more successful strategy would be to take the practical applications of Atheism in America (or any other country) and create planks like "enforcing the constitutional wall between church and state" (and using other related code words). Obviously, that makes a politician hard to understand since they aren't adhering to anyone's speaking points unless it's a third party.
Of course not. Atheists are (usually) unelectable for the same reason gays, blacks, women and latinos find it hard to get elected unless they do so in districts where they are in the majority: they are a minority, and as such are viewed with suspicion by the majority. It’s really that simple.
No, I would credit the actual laws preventing atheists from holding office, serving on a jury, or allowing testimony into a court, and the general unease about atheists as the primary reason atheists are “un-electable”.
I couldn’t answer your bulleted questions, though, as I don’t think studies have been done on those questions.
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