Where's all the straight people?
A quick question about this Pew research regarding American opinions on matters like same-sex marriage and who gets to pee where. Please note the responses are divided, among other ways, between those who regularly attend worship, and those who don't.
And immediately the question is: how does Pew know? Well, by asking, of course. But how do they know it's true?
Answer: they don't.
Not that this means a great deal in and of itself, but the response skew strongly conservative (as in, maintain the status quo) among those who regularly attend worship. Which could mean there is a direct causal connection between religious worship (Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Baha'i, what have you) and social conservatism. Or it could mean social conservatives are more concerned with thinking of themselves as regular attendees at worship, because it is right and proper to do so.
Although anecdotally I must say the most regular worshippers are generally the most conservative, in the sense they want things to always be done the way we've always done them, a sense true for the most radical UCC church goer as it is for the hardest shell Baptist or MO Synod member. All a matter there of what you're "conserving." And yes, church is still a "pillar" or American society, and we all know pillars mean they are straight and strong and unmoving, preferably still looking like one of the classic Greek styles, if at all possible (i.e., as frozen in time as stone, or concrete, which really doesn't wear away).
But correlation is not the same as causation.
Still, I've got to read the results to see what conclusions I draw from them. That just stuck out to me. I've learned too well how to worry about too little.
Carry on.
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