10 Feb
Religion, U.S. Politics

Catholic Candidates, Voters and Contraception

By Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil From the announcement of President Obama’s controversial new contraception policy, to Rick Santorum’s unexpected triple-win on Tuesday—Catholics have determined this week’s news cycle. To understand these developments, Moment speaks with Shaun Casey, a religious outreach advisor to the Obama campaign and author of The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy v. Nixon 1960. He is also associate professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. MM: What does it mean that we have two prominent Catholic candidates vying for the Republican nomination right now? Is this the first time all the top candidates—from either party—have not been Protestant Christians? SC: Of course the Democratic Party has nominated Catholics—John F. Kennedy and John Kerry. But on the Republican side, I don’t believe we’ve ever had a non-Protestant be the nominee. The evangelical...

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02 Nov
Uncategorized

The Emergence of Jewish Republicans

By Gabriel Weinstein After a year of raucous Tea Party protests, growing disillusionment with presidential policies and economic stagnation, Republicans’ fantasy of regaining control of at least one house of Congress is close to becoming a reality. The final USA Today/Gallup Poll released Sunday revealed that 55 percent of likely voters plan on voting Republican while 40 percent of likely voters will vote Democratic. Independent voters, who helped propel Barack Obama to victory in 2008, have left the Democratic fold. Women voters, traditionally Democratic stalwarts, are predicted to vote primarily Republican for the first time since gender vote tracking began in 1982. On this Election Day, will Jewish voters remain a bastion of Democratic support or join the disgruntled droves and vote Republican? Jews have tended to vote Democratic throughout American history.  The small American Jewish community...

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