Public Religion Research just released a poll claiming "first ever polls comparing conservative and progressive religious activist" which "show divergent identities" but "common commitment to political involvement"-Conservative & Progressive Religious Activists in 2009
For full report see link to Faithful, Engaged, and Divergent.
Here are some Key Findings.
Religious affiliation
Conservatives almost exclusively define themselves as Christian with less then one percent identifying as non-christian or unaffiliated. Progressive Religious Activists have about 39% that are not defined in an exclusively Christian sect.
Beliefs about the Scriptures
"...conservative and progressive religious activists have strikingly different beliefs about scripture. Nearly half of conservatives (48%) view scripture as the literal word of God, a view held by only 3% of progressives."
So Conservatives have a greater faith in the scriptures as the Word of God and explains why most conservatives are Christians but let's see how this belief makes a difference in political issue priorities.
Issue Priorities
"Conservative and progressive religious activists have strikingly different issue priorities. A majority of conservative religious activists gave priority to abortion and same-sex marriage, while progressive religious activists gave priority to a number if issues, including economic justice, the environment, and peace. Conservative religious activists overwhelmingly identify abortion (83%) and same-sex marriage (65%) as most important priorities among a set of eight issue areas. Fewer than 10% of progressive religious activists call those 
“most important” issues. Highest priorities for progressive activists are poverty (74%), health care (67%), environment (56%), jobs/economy (48%), and the Iraq war (45%)."
What I found interesting was that the issue of life and marriage were the main issues of the conservative. Now progressives you can argue are much more diverse but marriage and abortion is very low on their priority.
However, if family is the foundation to a non-poverty, healthy, good economy and environment then to attack the biological connection of the natural family (two parents of opposite sexes and children) is to attack all of the above. Both abortion and same-sex marriage attack that God given natural connection of parent and child thus cheapening the best environment for a society to be raised up in and so the more we go away from God's natural order of things the more we increase our poverty level which increases the cost and affordability of health care and makes workers less fit to work or lead to a better more productive economy.
Many conservatives see same-sex marriage and sexual activity before marriage as 1) unscriptural and 2) unscriptural for societies own benefit. As society tries unscriptural forms of bringing up a society that society is believed to be bound for failure for it is going against the best wisdom available in the mind of a conservative which is the very wisdom of God. So in the mind of a conservative being pro-natural family and anti-premarital sex and anti-abortion is to be anti-poverty, pro-healthcare and pro-jobs/economy.
Progressive answers to the problems of healthcare, poverty and economy without a high concern for family and life are for conservatives experiments going against the God given natural order for a healthy society. For conservatives the God of the scriptures is ultimately the answer to all the ills of society. The God of the scriptures starts with defining the right and wrong paths in accordance with His character and offers forgiveness in Christ when we realize we have traveled down the wrong path and in Christ we learn how to live according to God's way in relationship with Him. Any other way is but an experiment bound to fail for most conservatives those experiments will continue to hurt and harm society because those ways do not reflect the character of God which is the best and only character for a nation and a people to build upon.
Below the remaining contrasts is the testimony of the very Roe of Roe v Wade after she found forgiveness in Christ. There is much hope for society even after a society has followed a path that is against the God of that society. Many "conservatives religious activists" believe that God provides hope as is evidence by the conversion of Roe. See below testimony before a senate committee of how this played out in one woman's life.
Now with that laid aside there are more interesting findings.
It is very interesting to note the difference on abortion and marriage between conservative and progressive religious activists.
"Abortion: Conservative religious activists are nearly universally opposed to legalized abortion: 95% say either that abortion should be illegal in all cases (60%) or most cases (35%). In sharp contrast, 80% of progressive religious activists say abortion should be legal in all (26%) or most (54%) cases.
Gay and Lesbian Issues. On the issue of same-sex marriage, conservatives overwhelmingly oppose (82%) both same-sex marriage and civil unions, while nearly 6-in-10 (59%) progressives support same-sex marriage, and another third support civil unions."
The difference in who progressives vs conservatives on who they voted for in the 2008 election
"In 2008, Barack Obama was the solid favorite among progressive religious activists. Conservative religious activists initially were divided but eventually rallied to McCain. Among progressive activists, 58% say Obama was their first choice in the Democratic primary, and 93% supported him in the general election. Conservative activists were initially more split among GOP contenders, with 28% calling Mike Huckabee their top choice, with Romney getting 22% and McCain 17%. In the general election, however, 90% report voting for McCain.
Both religious activist groups cite faith as an important factor in their voting decision, but conservative activists were more likely to say that their faith was the most important factor. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of the conservative activists say their faith was the most important factor in deciding how to vote in 2008, and another 29% say their faith was as important as other factors. Among progressive activists, 1-in-5 say faith was the most important factor, and 41% report that faith was as important as other factors in deciding who to support in the election."
Below is testimony of the very Roe of Roe v Wade that legalized abortion in 1973 in America. The testimony below is in 2005 after Roe had found forgiveness in Christ for her sins. Click here for link of testimony at Senate.gov.
Testimony ofNorma McCorvey
(The former Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade)
June 23, 2005
JUNE 23, 2005
I am the woman once known as the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade. But I dislike the name Jane Roe and all that it stands for. I am a real person named Norma McCorvey and I want you to know the horrible and evil things that Roe v. Wade did to me and others. I never got the opportunity to speak for myself in my own court case. I am not a trained spokesperson, nor a judge, but I am a real person – a living human being who was supposed to be helped by my lawyers and the courts in Roe v. Wade. But instead, I believe that I was used and abused by the court system in America. Instead of helping women in Roe v. Wade, I brought destruction to me and millions of women throughout the nation. In 1970, I was pregnant for the third time. I was not married and I truly did not know what to do with this pregnancy. I had already put one child up for adoption and it was difficult to place a child for adoption because of the natural bond that occurs between a woman and her child. And after all, a woman becomes a mother as soon as she is pregnant, not when the child is born. And women are now speaking out about their harmful experiences from legal abortion.
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Instead of getting me financial or vocational help, instead of helping me to get off of drugs and alcohol, instead of working for open adoption or giving me other help, my lawyers wanted to eliminate the right of society to protect women and children from abortionists. My lawyers were looking for a young, white woman to be a guinea pig for a great new social experiment, somewhat like Adolf Hitler did. I wanted an abortion at the time, but my lawyers did not tell me that I would be killing a human being. My lawyers did not inform me about the life-changing consequences of this decision. I was living on the streets. And while I was confused and conflicted about the decision for many years, and while I was once an advocate for abortion, like many women who choose to participate in abortion, my lawyers did not tell me that I would later come to deeply regret that I was partially responsible for killing 40-50 million human beings. Do you have any idea how much emotional grief I have experienced? It is like a living hell knowing that you have had a part to play, though in some sense I was just a pawn of the legal system. But I have had to accept my role in the deaths of millions of babies and the destruction of women's lives. I will tell you later how I have tried to cope with that. How did I come to the position where I am today?
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Abortion is a shameful and secret thing. I wanted to justify my desire for an abortion in my own mind, as almost every woman who participates in the killing of her own child must also do. I made up the story that I had been raped to help justify my abortion. Why would I make up a lie to justify my conduct? Abortion itself is a lie and it is based on lies. My lawyers didn't tell me that abortion would be used for sex selection, but later when I was a pro-choice advocate and worked in abortion clinics, I found women who were using abortion as a means of gender selection. My lawyers didn't tell me that future children would be getting abortions and losing their innocence. Yet I saw young girls getting abortions who were never the same. In 1973, when I learned about the Roe v. Wade decision from the newspapers, not my lawyers, I didn't feel real elated. After all, the decision didn't help me at all. I never had an abortion. I gave my baby up for adoption since the baby was born before the legal case was over. I am glad today that that child is alive and that I did not elect to abort. I was actually silent about my role in abortion for many years and did not speak out at all. Then, in the 1980's, in order to justify my own conduct, with many conflicting emotions, I did come forward publicly to support Roe v. Wade. Keep in mind that I had not had an abortion and did not know much about it at the time.
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Then around 1992, I began to work in abortion clinics. Like most Americans, including many of you Senators, I had no actual experience with abortion until that point. When I began to work in the abortion clinics, I became even more emotionally confused and conflicted between what my conscience knew to be evil, and what the judges, my mind and my need for money were telling me was OK. I saw women crying in the recovery rooms. If abortion is so right, why were the women crying? Even Senator Hillary Clinton on January 25, 2005 was reported by the New York Times to finally admit "that abortion is a sad, even tragic choice for many, many women." Actually it is a tragic choice for every child that is killed and every woman and man who participates in killing their own child, whether they know it at the time or not. Many women will be in denial and even pro-choice for years like I was. But participating in the murder of your own child will eat away at your conscience forever if you do not take steps to cleanse your conscience, which I will discuss later. I saw the baby parts, which are a horrible sight to see, but I urge everyone who supports abortion to look at the bodies to face the truth of what they support. I saw filthy conditions in abortions clinics even when "Roe" was supposed to clean up "back alley" abortions. I saw the low regard for women from abortion doctors. My conscience was bothering me more and more, causing me to drink more and more and more. If you are trapped in
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wrongdoing then all you can do is justify and defend your actions, but the pain gets worse and worse, so I drank a lot to kill the pain. Finally, in 1995, a pro-life organization moved its offices right next door to the abortion clinic where I was working. I acted hatefully towards those people. But those people acted lovingly to me most of the time. One man did angrily accuse me at one point of being responsible for killing 40 million babies, but he later came to me and apologized for his words and said they were not motivated by love. The answer to the abortion problem is forgiveness, repentance, and love. Many of the women who abort their babies ask the little babies to forgive them. Even some abortionists encourage women to write cards explaining their behavior and asking the child's forgiveness. This is an old Japanese custom also. The web is filled with post-abortion recovery and grief sites. According to an amicus brief filed in my case, 100,000 women a year enter abortion recovery counseling programs. Abortion is not a simple medical procedure that is safer than childbirth, it is the killing of a human being. It produces severe psychological and emotional consequences. We can ask the children to forgive us, but the children are dead. They say – Alone, I was born. Alone, I shall die. We must also ask Almighty God to forgive us for what we have done. We must repent of our action as a nation in allowing this holocaust to come to our shores. We have to turn from our wicked ways. Senators, I urge you to examine your own conscience before
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Almighty God. God is willing and able to forgive you. He sent His own son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for my sins as Roe of Roe v. Wade, and for our sins in failing to act to end abortion and to truly help women in crisis pregnancies. I finally asked the Lord Jesus to forgive me in 1995 and immediately dedicated my life to saving children's and women's lives. In the year 2000, I met the lawyers from The Justice Foundation, Allan Parker and Clayton Trotter who are here behind me. I asked them to help me to reverse Roe v. Wade legally. We began collecting evidence from women about the devastating consequences of abortion in their lives. Women are very reluctant to speak about this horrible act which is a crime against humanity. In many cases the denial goes on for decades before they break. Women who have had an abortion often can't even tell their husbands, parents, family, friends or even their physicians or clergy. It is like a time bomb in the heart of every woman who's had an abortion. Eventually we collected almost 1,500 affidavits and filed a motion to reverse Roe v. Wade. As part of my statement to you today, I am enclosing summaries of those women's affidavits along with pictures of some of the women so you can see what abortion does to real women. I am also going to file copies of all the affidavits collected. Also behind me today are some of those witnesses whose affidavits were before the Supreme Court and I would like to ask them to stand at this time.
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These women hurt by abortion have formed a movement they call Operation Outcry to cry out to you, to the courts and to God Almighty to end this scourge of abortion in our nation. The Rev. Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference helped lead America non-violently to end the scourge of segregation. When slavery was constitutional, we treated one class of humans as property. We are treating the humans in the mother's womb as property and less than human when we say it is OK to kill them. How can we have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, when we have death by abortion? I have also included an essay on the Scott Peterson double-murder conviction which asks how one baby is a person that can be murdered but not another. On February 22, 2005, the Supreme Court declined to take my case. I was good enough for the courts when they wanted to impose abortion on America, but I wasn't good enough when I asked them to look at the hard evidence of what they have done to America. The Supreme Court of the United States should be ashamed of itself. It has taken this matter of abortion away from the states, the people, and the legislatures, but it refuses to look at the evidence of what it has done. How shameful is that? How can we have liberty without life? Every member of the Supreme Court who supports Roe should be impeached and I believe we should to limit the terms of Supreme Court justices to 8 years. The
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Supreme Court has hurt me and millions of women and children. I urge you to do everything in your power to reverse Roe v. Wade. Since the Supreme Court did not reject our arguments, we are continuing to bring those arguments before the court in case after case after case, including Sandra Cano's case which is in the courts now. Please do not ask a judicial nominee to pledge to maintain Roe v. Wade. If new evidence comes before the court, then the court should be willing change its old precedent, as it has many times. Roe v. Wade is not in the Constitution. It is just a bad Supreme Court decision with bad effects and needs to be reversed. I also support a constitutional amendment to protect all human life. I am also attaching a copy of my 13-page affidavit which was filed in our lawsuit to reverse Roe v. Wade. Some things should never be allowed, even if we want to do them. Murder is one, child abuse is another and allowing abortionists to harm women is another. Thank you, Senators.
