THIS & THAT #11

The World Is Watching Cleveland

But Not for an NBA Championship

The Republican National Convention opens on July 18 in Cleveland, Ohio, and a June Pew Research Center poll found that nearly four-fifths of white evangelical voters plan to cast their ballots for Trump “despite his multiple marriages, lack of piety and inconsistency on the issues they care about most.”

White evangelicals make up about one-fifth of all registered voters and are a very important and coveted bloc who can turn out the vote through their churches and social networks.

The poll also revealed that Roman Catholics favored Clinton over Trump by seventeen percentage points, helped along by Hispanic Catholics who supported Clinton over Trump by a huge 77 to 16 margin.

Black Protestants favored Clinton, while white mainline Protestants were for Trump over Clinton, 50 to 39 percent.

Don’t Count Me In

In a nation of an estimated 324,232,589 American citizens, the largest religious groups were Christians that comprise 70.8% of that population. Evangelical Protestants make up 25.4%, Mainline Protestants 14.7%, and Historically Black Protestants total 6.5%. Among the remaining Christian groups are Catholics at 20.8%, followed by Mormons, Orthodox Christians, Jehovah’s Witness, and Other Christian groups.

Don’t Count Me Out

The survey did not show results for members of minority religious groups, like Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Muslims, “because there were not enough of them in the poll.” It’s still thought by some that the United States is a Christian Nation.

A smaller numbers of groups fall under the broad category of Non-Christian Faiths, which comprise 5.9% of the religious total. Jews lead at 1.9%, followed by Muslims (0.9%), Buddhists and Hindus at 0.7%, Other World religions and Other Faiths.

Making up the second largest group are those who checked off “None” at 22.8%, including “Nothing In Particular” at 15%, Atheists, Agnostics, and the very honest who checked off “Don’t Know.”

Americans know very little Americans about the Baha’i Faith, which has a beautiful Temple in Haifa, Israel, as well as about Rastafarianism, Jainism or Taoism.

Whose Side Are They On?

Speaking of the Republican Convention, which we were some nine paragraphs ago, there are eighteen GOP Senators who won’t be able to make it, and some of the reasons why seem a bit dubious. Remember, our hardly working, do-very-little elected Congress and Senate people, just went on a seven-week summer vacation.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona will be visiting his state’s Grand Canyon, to be sure that it is still there. Arizona’s other Senator Jeff Flake, was quoted as saying, “I’ve got to mow my lawn.” Senator Steve Dalnes of Montana said, ”I’ll have my fly rod in my hand with my wife in Montana.”

Honesty Is the Best Policy

A spokesman for Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska said, “Senator Sasse will not be attending the convention and will instead take his kids to watch some dumpster fires across the state, all of which enjoy more popularity that the current front runners.”

Sasse has my vote if he ever runs for office in California.