An Extended Culture Divide:Exploring The Impact Of Religious Orthodoxy On The Political Orientations Of Ethnic Minority Groups,1980-2012

Alexis de Tocqueville observed in1840,"Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it.’(104). Despite the wall of separation established by the First Amendment, religion has always been entangled with people’s pursuit of freedom and modern politics in the U.S. In the current political circumstance where many pundits considered the electorate was split evenly, religion is among the core elements that have caused polarization in the mass. Albeit considerable studies were dedicated to the splitting force of religion in the white group, the linkage of religion and politics in ethno-racial minority groups remains a topic less investigated. In order to balance this imbalance a little, this thesis purports to examine whether a traditionalism-modernism divide along the line of Christianity orthodoxy has extended to the minority groups. It argues that presumably, religious orthodoxy has enhanced polarization by rupturing intra-group cohesion and enlarging inter-group disparity in ethno-racial minority groups with respect to political ideology and partisanship.Ethno-racial minority groups have long been taken as the bedrock for Democratic Party. In the2012election, Barack Obama’s victory also gives credit to the overwhelming support from minority groups. Notwithstanding, not all members of minority groups side with the liberal party and its cultural platforms. In2004, Rev. Gregory Daniels of a black Baptist church said in a news conference,"If the K.K.K. opposes gay marriage, I would ride with them." Though the wording of Rev. Daniels is more like an exaggeration instead of accurate portrayal of his stand, he has demonstrated the aversion to gay marriage of many conservative blacks like him. According to the religious landscape research conducted by this thesis, the2012data highlight that over60%of African Americans, around50%Hispanics and a third of Asian Americans are religious traditionalists. Meanwhile, the Republican Party is proactively seeking minority votes and formulates initiatives that allocate grants to churches to court the pious minority communities. The large conservative base of ethno-racial minority groups stockpiles huge political capitals for the Grand Old Party. In the joint influence of "push" and "pull", it is likely that committed church members would stand for conservative platforms and cast their votes in the GOP box. In this sense, religious belief could drop the apple of discord in the alliance solidified by race. Further, the impact of religion is deflected by variances of characteristics of various racial groups.To testify the hypothesis above, this thesis pools data from American National Election Studies (ANES) between1980and2012to conduct a quantitative empirical study. Under the culture war thesis and measurement framework of religiosity proposed by Geoffrey Layman, this thesis attempts to concentrate on the influence of belief and behavior on the political orientations, respectively on the culture issue stand, political ideology and partisanship preference. To comprehensively and accurately testify this hypothesis, ordered logistic regression modeling is the analytic technique employed. It is expected to observe that in ethno-racial minority groups the higher religiosity that a voter possesses, the more conservative he or she is in political positions, and the more likely he or she is to be aligned with the Republican Party. Moreover, in the last part of this research, the interaction between religiosity and race is incorporated in the modeling to investigate variances of the linkage between religion and political orientations between each racial group.After an empirical examination, this thesis finds that religiosity has caused a divide between the most pious and most secular members in political ideology and partisanship among Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans. The influence is growingly salient from1980to2012. Among these two groups, the higher degree of piety to Christianity prepares believers with an penchant for political conservatism and Republican partisanship. For African Americans, however, the range of religiosity in influencing political ideology is limited; in terms of partisanship, devoutness appears to be a liberal force that helps Democrat to cement their electoral advantage. Through examining the interaction of religiosity and race, this thesis corroborates the finding above that the influence of race in affecting the nexus of religiosity and political attitudes is most prominent among African Americans. This thesis proposes that the singularity of black theology and linked fate consciousness in the African American experience help to explain this outcome.In today’s high-pitched battle for the ticket to congress or White House, both parties are proactively seeking win-win strategies that can both solidify their traditional base while reaching out for fresh support from the opposite base. In this process, inevitably religion has become the convenient tool for the GOP to peel off minority voters. Hopefully, this empirical finding of this thesis could shed some light for future studies with regard to the influence of religion in the competition between two parties.