How Family Values Drive Red State/Blue State Politics

Tell me a few facts about your religious behavior, your family structure and where and how you live and I will tell you how you are going to vote.

Demographer Ron Lesthaeghe from the University of Michigan demonstrates how voting patterns in American politics mirror demographic behavior such as family formation, fertility and religious adherence. The culture war is the real war underlying other political issues.

The culture war is being fought between believers of traditional family structure and religious values governing personal behavior (31 % of the electorate) and secular individualists (17 % of the electorate) who support individual autonomy, egalitarianism, tolerance of diverse lifestyles, emancipation and grass roots democracy. Secular individualists oppose religious values in government.

Caught in the middle of the culture war are the independents (46 percent of the electorate). They do not fully accept either orthodox religious values or secular values. They have a mixture of both.

The beginning of secular individualism has its roots in the Enlightenment but received a major acceleration in the 1960s when Western societies embraced self-actualization, freedom of choice, individual autonomy, relative morality, emancipation and grass roots democracy. These values have overwhelmed Europe and have made major inroads in the United States.

Red State demographics. Lesthaeghe found that the best predictor of religious orthodoxy are regular church attenders of the Catholic, Evangelical Christian and Mormon faiths. They share a deep commitment to marriage, raising children, and living by an orthodox moral code defined by God in holy scripture upheld by organized religion and supported by "responsible" civil authorities. This requires suppression of individuality and sacrifice of self-interest. About a third of the American electorate fall into this category.

Pro-marriage, pro-family, and a pro-religion agenda is prevalent among the non-Hispanic, white population in most Southern states, the Great Plains states and the Mountain West except Colorado. In this group, there is a pattern of early marriage and little opposite or same sex cohabitation (less than 5 percent) among non-Hispanic white women.

Data on Hispanics and Afro-American family patterns were not considered because of high rates of teenage fertility, high fertility out of wedlock and households where grandparents become the caretakers of children.

States with the "family values" profile voted consistently Republican in 2000 and 2004. The trend was weaker in the South because the southerners vote more in accordance with ethnic and economic considerations. A large portion of the Afro-American population continues to vote systematically for the Democrats in presidential elections.

Blue State demographics. Measures of urbanity, material wealth and female education are the best

predictors of political behavior. Specifically the best predictors are incomes above $75,000, living in big cities and a greater percentage of women 25 and above who have professional degrees.

This demographic group is mainly identified by very late first marriages, higher incidence of abortion, high rates of cohabitation, and by lower overall fertility levels among non-Hispanic whites. Many of these cohabiting couples have children without choosing to marry. This means fragmented families and alternative lifestyles.

This is most prevalent in the New England states, northeastern states of New York and New Jersey and in California. Non-Hispanic white women in the states of California, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts are just as low or lower in fertility than countries in western Europe.

The "most tolerant" states with respect to both cohabitation in general and same sex cohabitation are Vermont and California, followed by Massachusetts, Washington, New York, Delaware, Florida and Maine very closely followed by a few others such as Colorado, Oregon, New Mexico and Hawaii.

States and counties with this demographic component voted strongly Democratic in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

The polarity of politics. The religious right sense the threat of heading down the same path of weakened marriage, cohabitation, and less support for strong families. They provide resistance against the cultural forces that turn red to purple, purple to blue and blue to Europe. Unlike Europe, there is enough religious strength in the United States to have a counter reaction to the weakening of marriage, dissolution of the family and traditional morality.

In Britain, a British child with two religious parents has a 50 percent chance of being religious, a child with one religious parent has a 25 percent chance. Alternative forms of family formation and loosened morality started by young people in the 60s reverberate into political clashes between the religious and secular on the battle for the family.

Secular individualists don’t want infringement on their liberty. They don’t want a "Moralist-in-Chief" passing moral judgments on themselves or others about diverse lifestyles and alternative family structure. The norms of popular culture are about independence, choice, bodily pleasure, and wealth.

The cultural/religious/political elites and cultural pressure groups pick up on cultural themes, interpret these in their own ideological fashion, and communicate their versions back to the public. We, the people, are definitely players in this high stakes drama with our lifestyles and values on the line.

Politicians didn’t create the polarity. We are already at the poles - or somewhere in the middle. The independents will decide this election’s winners and losers, but the battle will continue.

Information from this column is taken from, "The Political Significance of the ‘Second Demographic Transition’ in the US: A Spatial Analysis" by Ron Lesthaeghe and Lisa Neidert of the Department of Sociology and Population Studies Center, University of Michigan.