Race, class and sex no longer as divisive as political ideology

Quality.

 

I'd argue that we've simply wrapped race, class and sex so much into our politics that it encompasses it all neatly into one simplified argument. But if you try to be non-partisan, you then have to deal with all those issues separately and it becomes impossible.

 

On a somewhat related note, an interesting study here finding that Generation X is turning patterns on their head - as they age, they identify LESS as religious and MORE as Democrats.

http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2012/05/ARISGENX2012.pdf

At least religiously, there is a big divide: the fastest growing identifications are, and I'm paraphrasing, "none" and "crazy Christian." Mainline protestantism is flat, but the biggest declines are Baptist and Catholics. In fact, the Catholic losses would be much more severe if not for large growth in the Gen-X Hispanic population.

 

Maybe political ideology is a better way to define oneself. At least, that has been the argument in books ranging from "A People's History of the United States" to "What's The Matter With Kansas?" I know I have a lot in common with the black lesbian couple at our public school -- who, like us, are raising four kids and trying to navigate declining services and increasing college expenses on a fairly middle-class budget. And I don't have a lot in common with the white folks in the gated community on the hill who send their kids to the ultra-Christian K-12 school, believe they don't need and shouldn't have to pay for any government, and in many cases consider the presence of gay people to be evidence of the decline of civilization.

 

What interests me (age 40) most in that study is how the current generation of parents (we could still call them "Generation X" I guess) raise the fewer kids they're having in non-religious environments.

My wife and I have many friends (and several family members) who are parents in that age group, and it's stunning to us how few of their children go to any church, let alone a religious school or Sunday school. And we live in a pretty conservative area.

Like the article notes, we have found that other than Latino Catholics or Mormons, very little of the previous generation's religious institutions are being passed down — for better and worse.

 

Coco -- that's because they all have soccer games on Sunday morning.

 

Believe me, that sends my otherwise genteel pastor into a flying rage. The issue in my area is still that it's still heavily Catholic (with a lot of cultural Catholics, even if they don't attend mass), and so events are scheduled around the idea that you can go to Saturday mass if need be.

 

Funny, but also true.

I grew up in a predominantly Catholic area in the Chicago burbs, and recall that even the public schools would try not to schedule sports or other events on Wednesday nights. You know ... so kids could go to CCD!

 

I remember when I was a kid, at least once a week, a few kids in my class would always get excused a half-hour early from class so they could go to CCD. The rest of us always were jealous that they got to end school early.

As for me, I had to go to Hebrew School on Saturdays from 9-1:30, which meant I was deprived of Saturday morning cartoons and a good chunk of the noon Big Ten game of the week.

 

Ragu's right. It's been going on forever. Today's Tea Partiers are yesterday's Know-Nothings, etc.

 

it has always been, but I don't think it has always been this bad. Didn't there used to be some pride in bipartisanship? Now in Indiana we have a Senate candidate who defines bipartisanship as everyone agreeing with him. It seems like being able to compromise with others has become a political liability, when compromise is what made the republic possible in the first place.

 

Please don't fuck Dooley OR Zeke.