On God and sex there is a moral divide between Britain and US

[emad]

The Times
By Peter Riddell


BRITISH and American voters have sharply different attitudes to churchgoing and abortion. A new Populus poll for The Times shows that opinion in the US on moral issues is far more polarised than in Britain.

Labour and Conservative voters are much closer in their attitudes than were supporters of President Bush and Senator John Kerry during the American presidential election. There are sizeable dissenting minorities among Bush and Kerry voters.

In general, British voters take more liberal attitudes on moral issues such as abortion than many Americans.

The main exception in Britain is over same-sex couples. Tory voters are even more opposed to same-sex marriage than Bush voters, let alone than Labour voters. This is distinct from legally recognised civil unions that were debated in the Commons yesterday.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-1351930,00.html

Edit: Maybe because the UK doesn't have asses like Ashcroft:

"Mr Ashcroft became a figure of fun after ordering a cover-up of nude statues at the Justice Department when he was giving a press conference. He also tried to keep up Mr Bush's spirits after September 11 by singing hymns at the piano accompanied by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice." -
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/14600096?source=Evening%20Standard

and becasue religious radio broadcasting is BANNED!

[sui generis]

1. there's a very good reason for that

Britain saw over a thousand years of religious dominance and assorted persecution up front and personal.

We're too fucking stupid to believe it could ever happen here, after all, persecuting gays by depriving them of a stable home life and the right to manage their own assets is not the same thing as burning witches at the stake.

The rest of the world laughs at us, and we deserve it.

[BJ]

2. In Britian, as in the rest of Europe, these are not political "issues"

Wisely they are social or moral issues best left to the individual.

The only other countries on the face of this earth where "abortion," "homosexuality," etc. are political "issues" are the fundamentalist Islamic nations like Iran and Saudi Arabia, and dictatorships such as North Korea and Uzbekistan.

[sui generis]

3. great point /nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Warning: this article has misstated the American poll figures

When he says "About a third of Bush supporters say they never go to church", that's incorrect. What the 2 columns marked "Bush Voters" and "Kerry Voters" show are the division in that category between the Bush and Kerry voters - ie of the American voters who never go to church, 34% voted for Bush, while 64% voted for Kerry. Check, and you'll see the pair of figures always add up to about 100%.

This is clearer (and you get the full information you need) if you look at the polling firm's web page: http://www.populuslimited.com/ . For instance, that says 15% of voters never go to church; therefore, .34 * 15% = 5.1% of all voters are non-churchgoing Republicans (or 5.1% / 0.51 = 10% of Bush voters never go to church, since Bush got 51% of the countrywide vote).

So, assuming the voting figure to be 51% Bush, 48% Kerry, here are the real American figures, which can then be compared with the British ones:

Church going     Bush Kerry
more than weekly  20   12
weekly            30   22
monthly           14   15
few times a year  24   30
never             10   20

Abortion
always legal      10   32
mostly legal      25   44
mostly illegal    37   15
always illegal    23    7

Gay marriage
Marry             11   42
civil union       35   35
no recognition    49   23

This shows that, for instance, Tory voters are slightly more in favour of gay marriage than Republicans (their split was 18:39:39), in direct contradiction to what the article says.

Also: no-one in Britain goes to church anywhere near as much as Democrats, let alone the Republicans; the Tory attitude to abortion roughly matches that of Kerry voters; it's only 23% of Republicans who want abortion banned in all circumstances (though the 37% saying it should be "mostly illegal" may just be thinking of when the woman's like would be at serious risk, of course). And only 7% of Kerry voters think abortion should always be illegal, not the 'fifth' given in the article.

[D-Notice]

5. Actually...

There ARE religious radio stations over here:

Premier Christian
UCB

as well as The God Channel