Many Faith Voters Keep Church and School Separate

“I look at the whole package,” says Ruben Murillo Jr., a member of the NEA Catholic Caucus and president of the Clark County Education Association in Nevada. “You can’t be a one-issue voter.”

 
Murillo, a special education teacher, is a Eucharistic minister who also teaches classes on Catholic doctrine to adults converting to Catholicism.

 
 “The Catholics I know are more moderate than conservative,” says Murillo, a Democrat.  We look at how the majority of issues impact the country.”

 
Among the 19 faith segments tracked by Barna, evangelicals were the only segment to support Sen. John McCain. Among the larger faiths to support Obama are non-evangelical born again Christians (43 percent to 31 percent); notional Christians (44 to 28); people aligned with faiths other than Christianity (56 to 24); atheists and agnostics (55 to 17); and Protestants (43 to 34).

 
Approximately 25 percent of U.S. voters are Catholic. The Barna poll shows that Catholic voters favored Obama 39 to 29 percent despite misgivings over his opinions about abortion.

 
 Another recent survey, conducted by Belden Russonello & Stewart for Catholics for Choice, reveals that Catholic voters prefer Obama over McCain by the slim margin of 42 percent to 40 percent with 17 percent undecided. According to the 1,033 Catholic voters surveyed, they want the next president to focus on the basics of improving the economy, ending the war in Iraq, and keeping the country safe from terrorism.

 
Other concerns for these voters include improving education, making health care affordable, protecting civil liberties, fighting racism, and addressing global warming.

 
Richard Funk is a recently retired teacher from Montana and member of NEA’s People of Faith Caucus.

 
“Our faith is first and foremost but we’re not out there proselytizing,” he says. “We do take a stand on what we believe in.”

 
Funk says he is “mostly Republican” and is at the moment a Baptist attending a Lutheran church.  After the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate, Funk took note of her anti-abortion sentiments as well as her other positions.

 
“She’s a mother, a governor, a former mayor,” he says. “I take all that into consideration.”