Romney/Ryan is first major party ticket with no Protestant on it.

[minionofmidas]

Last I checked Mormons were Protestants.

Dude, the usual issue to debate is whether they're Christians. Theologically, that's a less-than-exactly-orthodox proposition.
Of course, they're culturally Protestant allright.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

Where is the evangelical Protestant? I don't see one. Neither party has a Protestant in the ticket.

You don't consider President Obama a Protestant?   

I made that joke already. It's pretty clear he meant a White Conservative Protestant.

I mean a Consevative Protestant!!!!!

Mormans are their own thing. They are not Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical or Pentacostal. Look at the core teaching of the LDS. There are drastic difference to why I view them in the typical lens.

[Donerail]

Where is the evangelical Protestant? I don't see one. Neither party has a Protestant in the ticket.

You don't consider President Obama a Protestant?   

I made that joke already. It's pretty clear he meant a White Conservative Protestant.

I mean a Consevative Protestant!!!!!

Mormans are their own thing. They are not Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical or Pentacostal. Look at the core teaching of the LDS. There are drastic difference to why I view them in the typical lens.

Why do we need a conservative Protestant? What's wrong with a normal Protestant, like an Episcopalian, Methodist, or Presbyterian (or, say, a Congregationalist)?

[milhouse24]

I thought Lutherens were the most popular denomination. 

We need more Quakers - like Nixon.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Where is the evangelical Protestant? I don't see one. Neither party has a Protestant in the ticket.

You don't consider President Obama a Protestant?   

I made that joke already. It's pretty clear he meant a White Conservative Protestant.

I mean a Consevative Protestant!!!!!

Mormans are their own thing. They are not Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical or Pentacostal. Look at the core teaching of the LDS. There are drastic difference to why I view them in the typical lens.

Why does church doctrine matter more the the faith derived ideology? The former is very exclusive and self-defeating. 

[milhouse24]

No, because the Catholic vote is now so fragmented that I doubt it will transform into a bloc vote.

The USA is becoming more Catholic as a whole, especially with more Hispanic immigrants. 

It makes complete sense for the GOP to embrace Catholic candidates if they want to survive for the next 50 years. 

Democrats think they have a lock on Hispanic and Catholic voters, but that will go away. 

Its pretty cool to think that Catholics have taken over from the Protestants as the most powerful religious group in the country. 

The bolded part is false. The US is not becoming more Catholic. Immigrants to the US as a whole are about 40% Catholic, but this only modest increase only offsets the loss of Catholics already here in conversions. The Catholic Church only keeps about 68% of its followers from one generation to the next, truthfully a higher percentage than almost all of the Protestant sects, but the Catholic Church only attracts a very small number of converts compared to other sects, so the overall percentage would be decreasing with no immigration. The two effects roughly offset.

But the other immigrants are likely Muslims, Indian-Hindus, Asian-buddists/atheists.  So its not like the WASP population is growing in the US from more WASP immigrants. 

No, the WASP percentage is shrinking rather quickly. But it isn't the Catholic percentage that's increasing, it's the none/other.

As an organized political force, that would make Catholic church members the fastest growing group.  The immigrants from Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, are quite small compared to Catholics.  Therefore Catholics win by default. 

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Interestingly enough, with Romney, Biden and the Prohibition Party ticket (which still exists), there are 4 non-drinkers on presidential tickets this year.

Oh, and Mormons are Protestant Christians, just to let you know. Odd ones yes, but still Protestants.

They consider themselves Protestant Christians, but many Protestants don't actually consider them Protestant.

From everything I have read, LDS officially does not consider itself Protestant.

[doktorb]

A lot of "firsts" can be overstated. Is this the first ticket with two surnames containing the letter "y" ?

Possibly. Not going to check through the defeated ones. Certainly not if we add given names, though, there've been about half a dozen successful ones alone in that case.

Absolutely!

The  point I wanted to make was that this election is already complicated enough with Obamacare and what-not; adding religion/faith only adds unnecessary 'heat'. That there is/isn't a Protestant on the ticket this year shouldn't be important in and of itself, though I am typing at half-2 in the morning with an English accent.

If this is the first "double y" nomination, that should be as much a trivial note to make as 'two Amish' or 'two lapsed Catholics".

[Averroës Nix]

Mormans are their own thing. They are not Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical or Pentacostal.

What about Morwomen?

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Mormans are their own thing. They are not Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical or Pentacostal.

That's not how it goes. It goes Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant. All forms of Christianity fall under one of the three.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Mormans are their own thing. They are not Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical or Pentacostal.

What about Morwomen?

Mormen and Mormaids.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Mormans are their own thing. They are not Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical or Pentacostal.

That's not how it goes. It goes Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant. All forms of Christianity fall under one of the three.

Says who? Mormons may be Christian, but it's hard to call them Protestant, and they certainly aren't Catholic or Orthodox!

Also, you have Churches like these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_East
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christadelphians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_Movement
Which doctrinally, are clearly outside the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions, but which nonetheless consider themselves Christian.

[All Along The Watchtower]

So what kind of Catholics would support a Romney/Ryan ticket, in general? I don't see their economic views being particularly appealing to many (most?) Catholics. And they are basically running on the economy.

[BaldEagle1991]

Catholics are such a fragmented religion when it comes to politics. This is because the Catholic Church is very pro-environmental, pro-peace, pro-welfare, and anti-gay rights, anti-abortion.  It's a mixed bag politically, that's why you have Catholic politicians like Paul Ryan and John Boehner, and Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden on the other. 

I think if anything it isn't going to change the church's voting patterns, especially among minority Catholics, they're going to vote mostly against Romney/Ryan.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Oh boy, don't know where to begin. Granted this isn't so full of absurdity, ignorance and bad posts as it is info that just needs more clarification for the most part. I'll start here:

Some Protestant sects don't consider Catholics Christian.

Well that depends on how we're defining "sect". Might be true for the First Baptist Church of Podunk County South of Mason Dixon and plenty of churches that are basically cults and consider just about all other Christian denoms to not be Christian either (think of Westboro Baptist or that Koran burning guy in Florida), but there is no actual serious Christian denomination that holds a theology stating Catholics are not Christians. Even the Seventh Day Adventists, who formed under a rather anti-Catholic theology (that Sunday worship is the mark of the beast, and that the Catholic Church is responsible for distorting this and misleading God's people), don't hold to this view, granted they've deemphasized most of the anti-Catholic stuff in the last century and hold it only nominally now, but even their founder said in one of her writings that she admits there might be true followers of Christ in the Catholic Church, even if misled. Bob Jones University, Jack Chick and the like aren't affiliated with any real denominations.

Now there is no Catholic voting bloc. There never really has been either, but there certainly isn't now. The Catholic vote is so bellwether that it went Gore-Bush-Obama in the last three elections, and in fact the last election it probably deviated from the popular vote winner is 1968, and even then it was probably pretty close in a pretty close election. Prior to that you'd have to go back to...1928. Even if Catholics were a unified bloc, both tickets are the same in that they are led by a non-Catholic with a Catholic as VP so this is basically the biggest non-factor ever.

I've always found the idea that evangelicals are staunchly anti-Catholic as a rule to be largely an invention of Catholics with a persecution complex and secularists trying to make evangelicals out to be even more bigoted then they really are, and I'd say that Rick Santorum's campaign provides quite a bit of evidence in favor. The only anti-Catholic evangelicals I've ever met have been either A) ex-Catholics themselves and likely bitter in the same way Catholics turned mainline/other religion/nothing usually are and/or B) liberal evangelicals that are against the church due its policies on women and gays. Granted I'm not the top guy to talk to for the opinions of conservative evangelicals, but once again, please look toward Rick Santorum's campaign.

[All Along The Watchtower]

BRTD, right-wing evangelicals aren't as bigoted against Catholics as they used to be, sure-but what of Al Smith's campaign in 1928? Or Kennedy's in 1960? Hell, you even had a good deal of mainline Protestants opposing them on the grounds that they would be dictated by the RCC.

And right-wing evangelicals liked Santorum only because he spoke their language. Using him to argue that right-wing evangelicals aren't anti-Catholic is like saying Alan Keyes or Herman Cain proves that Republicans don't have a sizable racist voting bloc.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD, right-wing evangelicals aren't as bigoted against Catholics as they used to be, sure-but what of Al Smith's campaign in 1928? Or Kennedy's in 1960? Hell, you even had a good deal of mainline Protestants opposing them on the grounds that they would be dictated by the RCC.

Well if you have to go back at least 52 years to find examples...

Mind you JFK still won and won most of the most heavily evangelical states (even in Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky he won the historically Democratic areas, the historically Republican ones came out against him), and Al Smith's best areas were evangelical, true the elections at the time weren't exactly democratic, but there were plenty of other issues besides Catholicism. The idea that either one would submit the US to the rule of the Pope is a lot like Birtherism or believing Obama is a Muslim, it might've been believed by some very uneducated types and hacks who weren't going to vote for either one anyway, but it was very very far from a widespread belief that most people adhered to.

And right-wing evangelicals liked Santorum only because he spoke their language. Using him to argue that right-wing evangelicals aren't anti-Catholic is like saying Alan Keyes or Herman Cain proves that Republicans don't have a sizable racist voting bloc.

Neither one has ever won a Republican primary. What it shows is that not all Republicans are so racist they'll vote against any black (and Lewis has noted that there is evidence that hardcore conservative activists are probably less racist than rank and file GOP voters, not surprising and indicative considering where their support has come from.) Worth noting that by most counts Santorum performed even better with evangelical voters than Huckabee in 2008 did.

[RI]

Mormans are their own thing. They are not Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical or Pentacostal.

That's not how it goes. It goes Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant. All forms of Christianity fall under one of the three.

I don't really consider Anglicans to be Protestants, though I suppose they could be. I've always thought about them as a sort of in between Catholicism and Protestantism, somewhat like the Orthodox Church but not as close to Catholicism. That might just be me though. Also, Mormonism and JW had roots independent of the Reformation, so it's difficult to call them Protestants in the traditional sense.

[RI]

Now there is no Catholic voting bloc. There never really has been either, but there certainly isn't now. The Catholic vote is so bellwether that it went Gore-Bush-Obama in the last three elections, and in fact the last election it probably deviated from the popular vote winner is 1968, and even then it was probably pretty close in a pretty close election. Prior to that you'd have to go back to...1928. Even if Catholics were a unified bloc, both tickets are the same in that they are led by a non-Catholic with a Catholic as VP so this is basically the biggest non-factor ever.

Catholics were a pretty unified bloc in 1964 and 1960, for sure. Just look at the results from Louisiana. They also generally voted Democratic before that, though there were exceptions.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

There is definitely an anti-Catholic evangelical sentiment, but it's really, really small nowadays, and it generally only shows up in certain parts of the South (again, like Louisiana).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Cajuns were a pretty unified bloc in 1960 no doubt (though as noted also before that), but as for Catholics in general:





Eastern Wisconsin, especially northeast is where the Catholics live (BTW JFK only won Brown county by about 200 votes), and Long Island and Staten Island are fairly obvious (also JFK only got about 54% in Queens.) Even if JFK did particularly united Catholic voters (which he did in some places) it's quite obvious the reason why.

And in 1964 everyone was a unified voting bloc who wasn't a hardline partisan GOP voter whose area had been voting Republican for a century prior or white southernor.

[RI]

Well, Wisconsin Catholics are a bit different than most, generally coming from Germany and with a more conservative mindset, and they were always much more Republican than Irish Catholics, for example. I suppose calling them unified might be a stretch, but they were, in general, much less divided than they are now.

[useful idiot]

I've always found the idea that evangelicals are staunchly anti-Catholic as a rule to be largely an invention of Catholics with a persecution complex and secularists trying to make evangelicals out to be even more bigoted then they really are, and I'd say that Rick Santorum's campaign provides quite a bit of evidence in favor. The only anti-Catholic evangelicals I've ever met have been either A) ex-Catholics themselves and likely bitter in the same way Catholics turned mainline/other religion/nothing usually are and/or B) liberal evangelicals that are against the church due its policies on women and gays. Granted I'm not the top guy to talk to for the opinions of conservative evangelicals, but once again, please look toward Rick Santorum's campaign.

You're pretty spot on actually. I mentioned this in the other thread on the issue, but the more political conservative-evangelicals tend to be, the more pro-Catholic they are. People who attend evangelical churches for cultural reasons (a good chunk of the evangelical community) see Catholics as brothers in arms more than anything.

Institutions like Wheaton, Fuller, Christianity Today, et al are pretty representative of evangelicalism as a whole, and I doubt you'd hear anything coming out of those schools or from that magazine that proclaims Catholics to be non-Christian. Hell, Billy Graham was considered the determining factor in whether or not one was a fundamentalist or an evangelical in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. What was the issue that caused fundamentalists to scorn Graham? He did his crusades alongside Catholics. C.S. Lewis is a revered figure in evangelical academia, and they all know he believed in purgatory, prayers for the dead, etc.

But of course it's the backwoods fundamentalist who says gays should be put in concentration camps that gets slapped with the "evangelical" label by the media, because they don't know any better. Evangelicalism, for what its worth, was always slightly left-leaning before a bunch of fundamentalists started calling themselves evangelicals and got involved in politics in the late 70s. Those fundamentalists morphed into what we call "conservative evangelicals" today, and they're largely concerned with politics more than they are with theology. It's only natural that they'd gravitate towards a guy like Santorum, because he's culturally conservative, their litmus test.

    

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yeah evangelicals were even relatively socially liberal until the Moral Majority. Lots of evangelical churches ordained women prior to the mainline denominations doing so.

This is a good case where you have to really draw an evangelical/fundamentalist distinction, and the fundamentalists of the frothingly anti-Catholic variety tend to be extreme even by fundamentalist standards and big on things like KJV-only and consider about 90% of evangelical preachers as well to be heretics and false teachers, Jack Chick has called C. S. Lewis's works Satanic actually.

[RI]

Yeah evangelicals were even relatively socially liberal until the Moral Majority. Lots of evangelical churches ordained women prior to the mainline denominations doing so.

This is a good case where you have to really draw an evangelical/fundamentalist distinction, and the fundamentalists of the frothingly anti-Catholic variety tend to be extreme even by fundamentalist standards and big on things like KJV-only and consider about 90% of evangelical preachers as well to be heretics and false teachers, Jack Chick has called C. S. Lewis's works Satanic actually.

This is certainly true. I've never had any problems with evangelicals, and the only Catholics I personally know who have were in parts of the South that are pretty backwoods-y following Hurricane Katrina doing relief work.

There isn't any particularly good reason why Catholics, Evangelicals, and Mormons for that matter shouldn't be allies on a lot of issues.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCWdCKPtnYE