Younger evangelicals not a monolithic constituency in GOP’s pocket

MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Who would Jesus vote for?

When Christian magazine Relevant asked its young evangelical readers that question, it spawned an interesting response: Barack Obama beat out Baptist minister Mike Huckabee, 28 percent to 24 percent.

The drift from the right highlights the vastly different viewpoints within the so-called evangelical voting bloc.

While Pat Robertson inexplicably threw support behind former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has dropped out of the campaign, leading evangelicals-Jerry Falwell Jr., "Left Behind" authors Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, Vision America Action's Rick Scarborough-are rallying around Huckabee.

But what are young evangelical voters looking for?

"There's so much more than just the social issues," said Ovi Tisler, a 23-year-old computer engineer for Zebra Technologies in Chicago. Traditional evangelicals, he said, "don't really talk about the economic part and national security."

The concern ranking highest among Relevant readers age 18 to 34 is illegal immigration with 39 percent of the vote, followed by abortion and bioethics. Ranking as the least important issues were gay rights and church and state.

Tisler said he considers himself part of the evangelical vote on issues such as same-sex marriage, "but for different reasons."

"First of all, government shouldn't be involved in marriage," Tisler said, adding that too often the line kind of gets blurred between religion and government.

Tisler grew up Romanian Baptist in Chicago and now attends the non-denominational Moody Church, calling himself a "reformed Baptist." He said he would consider social issues as just part of a host of other things he's looking for in a candidate.

"It's an interesting bag of things that people are starting to bring to the table," said John Kimbrough, a volunteer for the University of Chicago's Intervarsity Christian Fellowship group. He said social justice issues are of great concern for many of the college students in the group.

Kimbrough, 32, said a president's faith is not important for garnering his vote, adding "for me personally, it's a nice thing, but I'm electing a president, not a pastor."

Jenny Cota, a member of Campus Crusade at Northwestern University, said the electability of a candidate is important. Cota, 21, decided to support Mitt Romney over her first choice, Huckabee, because Romney was more likely to be the Republican nominee.

Alan Gitelson, a political science professor at Loyola University Chicago, said the movement over the past couple of years has been for evangelical voters to shift their base of issues.

"In the past several years there is a growing belief [among] young evangelicals that there are other social issues that evangelicals have to deal with from the environment to poverty," Gitelson said.

But he added that it isn't necessarily a shift to the left. Rather, he sees the movement as two polar sides finding more things in common.

Relevant publisher Cameron Strang said that common ground is found because young evangelicals tend to be morally conservative but don't think that morality should be legislated.

"On moral issues, a majority of the respondents label themselves conservative. Only 14 percent identified themselves as conservative on social issues," Strang said. "Barack Obama would fall in line with that appeal."

Strang said if a morally conservative, yet socially progressive candidate emerged, America would have "millions of voters coming out of the woodwork."

About 8,500 readers responded to the survey, which was published this month but conducted in October and November. Strang said if the question-who would Jesus vote for?-was asked today, he believes U.S. Rep. Ron Paul would likely be at the top.

"[Paul] has definitely struck a chord with younger voters across the board, not just evangelicals," said Lisa Wogan, Illinois communications coordinator for the Ron Paul campaign.

Wogan attributed his appeal with evangelical Christians to the fact that many of Paul's policy ideas are based on the Golden Rule, and he "believes our freedoms are granted by God and not by the government."

Of the readers surveyed by Relevant, 71 percent said they vote in every election.

"As more and more of these people come into voting age, the tide's going to shift," Strang said. "It's going to catch the political arena off guard.