If the last presidential election was any indication, the outcome of November's contest will be decided in large part by voters' religious commitments. The more often you attend church, the more likely you are to vote Republican. What polling data don't tell us is why the religiously observant vote as they do.
The statistical trend is striking. In 2000, Voter News Service reported that the 14% of voters who attended religious services more than once a week voted for George W. Bush over Al Gore by 63% to 36%. Meanwhile, the 14% who never went to services supported Gore over Bush by an equally commanding margin, 61% to 32%.
What is it about the policy positions and cultural attitudes described as Republican or conservative that makes them so attractive to religious voters? What principle links, say, a passionate defense of gun ownership and a strong preference for low taxes? The link can be summarized in three words: individual moral responsibility.
For more than a century, our culture has been divided on the question of whether individual moral actors may justly be held responsible for their deeds. Marx and Freud rocked the 19th century faith in moral responsibility and freedom of will, arguing that human beings are unknowingly in the grip of, respectively, powerful economic and psychosexual forces. Later analysts would discover other latent structures in society that supposedly determine our moral choices.
Today, the ideological struggles of liberals and conservatives mirror the clash initiated by Marxists and Freudians with 19th century individualism. Conservatives encourage individuals to make their own choices, except where those choices invariably harm the innocent (as in abortion) or undermine the pillars of civilization itself (as in gay marriage). Liberals see the function of government as parental, with citizens in the role of children too unaware and irresponsible to cross the street by themselves.
Consider the following admittedly broad generalizations:
The gun control debate pits conservatives, who are content to place moral responsibility on the gun owner, against liberals, who think that that responsibility can safely be placed on only the state.
Liberals tar conservatives for their apparent stinginess on government social spending, but conservatives respond that society should depend more on individuals to support the needy. Heavy taxes are a sign that society has relieved the individual of that responsibility.
