Faith, marriage concerns may hurt Democratic Party, writer says

Author and commentator Michael Medved is citing demographic shifts relative to religion and marriage as reasons for significant concerns for President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.

"New polling from the Gallup Organization includes striking details that ought to alarm the administration and its allies," Medved writes on the Daily Beast. "For the first time, substantial majorities of those who describe themselves as Democrats in the age of Obama say they are unmarried and irreligious — in a nation that overwhelmingly values both marriage and religion."

Medved, who hosts a nationally syndicated daily radio talk show, uses statistical information from the Gallup survey and other surveys to show that while Democrats are becoming less likely to be religious or married, Americans in general continue to be both, and to view both marriage and religion as positive elements in a person's life.

"The United States not only remains a nation where the bulk of the populace attends religious services regularly and most adults go home each night to a husband or wife, but big majorities still believe that marriage and faith are positive influences in our national life," Medved said. "In this regard, the Democratic Party faces an obvious challenge with its majorities of the unmarried and the irreligious."

Not only is the public oriented toward faith and marriage, Medved notes, but prominent Democrats, including President Obama, "express strong support for lasting marriage and dynamic faith communities as beneficial to the nation."

"By promoting such sentiments," Medved wonders, "don't Democrats unwittingly acknowledge that they want more people to resemble Republicans and fewer Americans to be like them? Don't they implicitly endorse GOP values over their own?"

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