Susan Page had a front-page article in today's USA Today on "Churchgoing Closely Tied to Voting Patterns". The article contains much useful data about religiosity and voting, including information on how the "attendance gap"--those who frequently attend church vote Republican at substantially higher rates than those who don't--has evolved over time. (Unfortunately, a nice chart with these data is only available in the paper's print edition).

That gap was almost non-existent in 1968, grew to 10 points in 1972, declined to 4-7 points in the '80s and then emerged in full force in '92 and beyond: 17 points in 1992, 19 points in 1996 and 20 points in 2000.

Why was this? John Green of the University of Akron is quoted in the article giving the standard explanation:

Once social issues came to the forefront — abortion, gay rights, women's rights — it generated differences based on religious attendance. More observant people tend to have more traditional morality, and they moved in a more conservative direction because of those issues.

There's a lot of truth to this, but the other side of the equation is important too: less observant people tend to have less traditional morality--prizing tolerance, diversity and women's rights--and have moved in a liberal direction. Thus, though they may not attend church every week, they're voting their values just as much as the folks who do. The USA Today story gives this aspect of the attendance gap short shrift.

The article also implicitly poses this attendance gap as a big problem for the Democrats. In reality, given what we know of trends in social values and church attendance (see my May 27 post), it makes more sense to see it as a Republican problem. Over time, the ranks of those with less traditional morality and less frequent church attendance will continue to grow and, so, therefore, will the ranks of Democratic-leaning values voters.

These are changes that Democrats should welcome and build on. Which means it's high time Democrats started contesting the idea that the only folks who take values--including religious values--seriously are those that attend church every week. That's neither logically nor empirically true and certainly runs counter to what the Democratic party stands for. Instead, we should defend diversity in attendance practices just as we defend diversity in other areas. After all, most Americans believe the key aspect of religion is not how often you attend church but rather how you practice the values your religion teaches. Sounds like an idea Democrats should embrace and promote, rather than worrying unduly about the attendance gap.