Religion plays a part in American elections. Religion is part of the political debate over LGBT rights, abortion, the right to die/assisted suicide, universal health care, workers rights and immigration.
According to Dr. John Green of University of Akron, "There isn't a Catholic vote anymore; there are several Catholic votes." A survey conducted by the Gallup organization in 2009 revealed that, despite the opposition of the Church to abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, there is no significant difference between the opinions of Catholics and non-Catholics on these questions.
Voting guides
In 2004, Catholic Answers, a private lay Catholic group with no official connection to the USCCB, published its Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics. It also published Voter's Guide for Serious Christians for non-Catholics. In 2006, it revamped the guides and published them on its Catholic Answers Action web site.
In 2016 another Catholic organization, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, published the Pope Francis Voter Guide to help inform the faithful about their specifically political vocation as Catholics in the United States.
In January 2016, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops produced an updated version of their 2007 voter's guide, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. It is a summary of the USCCB's public policies based on church teachings.
In September 2016, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of the Diocese of Phoenix issued the fourth edition of his guide, Catholics in the Public Square. In it, he suggested to politicians supporting abortion that they would need to repent and go to Confession before receiving Holy Communion, dissenting from most other bishops including Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Cardinal Donald Wuerl who said the Church does not deny communion over issues of legislation.
Marriage and family
The Roman Catholic Church defines marriage as a covenant "by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring." The church teaches that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved." Nevertheless, homosexuals "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided." Some Roman Catholics take this to mean that voting in favor of "benefits for lifelong partners" is a compassionate act, whereas others see voting in favor of "benefits for lifelong partners" as merely promoting behavior contrary to natural law. According to a 2009 survey, 59% of practicing Catholics oppose same-sex marriage, while those who are not practicing support it by 51%. Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor was an outspoken critic of homosexuality; other prominent Catholics who were outspoken critics have included John Boehner, David Vitter, Paul Ryan, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Jeb Bush, Bob McDonnell, Marco Rubio, Michael Steele, Donald Carcieri and Sam Brownback. Catholics Rudolph Giuliani, Chris Christie, Tim Kaine, Father James Martin, SJ, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, Cardinal Blase Cupich, Father Patrick J. Conroy (Jesuit chaplain to the U. S. House of Representatives), and Bob Casey, Jr. have supported gay rights and civil unions but not same-sex marriage. Liberal Catholics have generally supported repeal of sodomy laws that called for jail time for homosexuals and Employment Non-Discrimination laws that would prohibit large employers from firing workers because of sexual orientation. Conservative Catholics have taken the contrary view, rejecting claims that these are examples of "unjust discrimination" and that because homosexual act is an intrinsic evil, it must always be opposed.
Abortion
In accordance with its teachings, the Catholic Church opposes abortion in all circumstances and often leads the national debate on abortion. The Roman Catholic Church has been a fierce opponent of liberalized abortion laws and has organized political resistance to such legislation in several Western countries.
Before the Roe v. Wade decision making abortion legal in the United States, the anti-abortion movement in the United States consisted of elite lawyers, politicians, and doctors, almost all of whom were Catholic. The only coordinated opposition to abortion during the early 1970s came from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Family Life Bureau, also a Catholic organization. Mobilization of a wide-scale anti-abortion movement among Catholics began quickly after the Roe v. Wade decision with the creation of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC). The NRLC also organized non-Catholics, eventually becoming the largest anti-abortion organization in the United States. The pro-life wing of the Democratic Party was also led by Catholic Robert P. Casey, Sr. other anti-abortion Democrats including, Sargent Shriver, Raymond Flynn and Bob Casey, Jr.
Some Catholics have raised questions of pro-choice politicians receiving communion. Such cases have typically involved a bishop threatening to deny a Catholic politician communion, though in some cases excommunication has been suggested and in others a bishop has instructed a politician not to take communion. The first such case was that of Lucy Killea, though such threats have subsequently been made in national elections.
In 2004, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then-prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, instructed American bishops in a confidential memorandum that Communion must be denied to Catholic politicians who support legal abortion. However, Cardinals O'Malley, Egan, McCarrick, Wuerl, Mahony and George have said they would not refuse communion to a person in public life who is pro-choice. Cardinal Burke and Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia, have made statements against giving communion but neither has ever refused someone.
During the 2004 presidential campaign, a few bishops called for Catholic politicians who voted for Kerry to be barred from receiving Communion. This tactic provoked a negative reaction which caused the Catholic Church to adopt a different approach for the 2008 election. The new message was compiled into a brochure titled "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," which "emphasized that issues involving 'intrinsically evil' actions could not be equated morally with others," according to the Times. The brochure cited abortion as the "prime example," but also mentioned euthanasia, torture, genocide, unjust war and racism.
In the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, as many as 89 Catholic bishops proclaimed that Catholics should make abortion their defining issue in the election.
In November 2009, Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy disclosed that Bishop Thomas Tobin had ordered priests in the diocese not to give him communion because of Kennedy's position in favor of unrestricted abortion. Other bishops, archbishops and cardinals however have not denied communion to pro-choice politicians.
Some Catholic commentators viewed the 54-45% majority of Catholic voters choosing Obama in the 2008 presidential election as a repudiation of certain bishops who had warned that voting for Obama, a pro-choice candidate, could constitute a grave sin. A dispute within the Church arose when the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic institution, named President Barack Obama commencement speaker at its 2009 graduation and bestowed an honorary doctorate degree on him. The invitation drew intense criticism from conservative Catholics and some conservative members of the church hierarchy because of Obama's policies in favor of legal and funding abortion.
Polling shows a majority of Catholics classify themselves as anti-abortion; a 2009 poll showed a 52% majority identifying as anti-abortion. Pew Research, combining polls from 2011 and 2013, notes that over half (53%) of white Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, with 41% saying it should be illegal in all or most cases. Among Hispanic Catholics, 43% say it should be legal in all or most cases, while 52% say it should be illegal in all or most cases.
Birth control
In 1948, Archbishop Richard Cushing campaigned against a Massachusetts referendum to loosen the state's ban on birth control. While the referendum failed, "deployment of the Church's political muscle," according to historian Leslie Tentler, offended non-Catholics and led Cushing to relax his position when the issue was debated again in the 1960s.
In 2012, when the Obama administration proposed regulations that required employer-provided health insurance plans to cover contraception, Catholic companies such as affiliated universities and EWTN Broadcasting, which believed they should be exempt from the law, sued the government, while Catholic religious leaders campaigned against it in church. The regulation was later altered so that an employee of a religious institution which did not wish to provide coverage for reproductive health care could seek it directly from the insurer at no additional cost. Catholic religious authorities continued to oppose the plan, while the Catholic Health Association supported it.
While the pope and the bishops have opposed birth control, the majority of American Catholics disagree with them, and believe the church should change its teaching on birth control. A Pew Research poll conducted in 2013 found that three-quarters of U.S. Catholics (76%) say the church should permit birth control.
Immigration
The immigration debate has opened a chasm with Republican hardliners who want restrictions. Some 30% of the Roman Catholic population is Hispanic and that percentage continues to rise steadily. Pope John Paul II advocated that countries should accommodate people fleeing from economic hardship. Cardinal Raymond Burke has been involved in rallies to allow undocumented workers a chance at citizenship. By welcoming migrant workers, many of whom are Catholic, Burke says, "we obey the command of Our Lord, who tells us that when we welcome the stranger, we welcome Christ Himself."
In addressing the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life in 2009, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver discussed the need when talking about reforming immigration law, to do so "... in a comprehensive way, so that justice is done and our borders are protected. It's always both/and; it's not either/or from my perspective." "[N]o one can claim to be Catholic and think it's okay to treat immigrants unjustly or inhumanly. But you can disagree on immigration policies because you think that one works and one doesn't."
Most immigration to the U.S. is from predominantly Roman Catholic nations and about ¾ of all lapsed Catholics have been replaced by immigrant Catholics in the United States.
In 2006, Cardinal Roger Mahony announced that he would order the clergy and laity of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to ignore H.R. 4437 if it were to become law. Cardinal Mahony personally lobbied senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein to have the Senate consider a comprehensive immigration reform bill, rather than the enforcement-only bill that passed the House of Representatives. Cardinal Mahony also blamed the Congress for the illegal immigration crisis due to their failure to act on the issue in the previous 20 years, opposed H.R. 4437 as punitive and open to abusive interpretation, and supported S. 2611.
Party affiliation
Before the 1960s, when cultural changes lead to an incremental liberalization of the Democratic Party, Catholics were seen as staunch Democrats. The Democratic Party ran Al Smith, the first Catholic presidential candidate by a major party, in 1928, and, except when the ticket was headed by a Southern candidate, has nominated a Catholic for president or vice president in every election since 1960 except for 1988 (where a Greek Orthodox, Michael Dukakis, was the presidential nominee).
Since the 1960s, the Catholic vote has come to reflect the nation as a whole instead of being predominantly Democratic. In the 60s and early 70s, a number of Catholics and Southern whites abandoned their traditional affiliation with the Democratic Party and began to support the Republican Party. This shift is evidenced by the fact that Nixon received 33% of the Catholic vote in the 1968 election compared to 52% in 1972. As a group, Catholics represented a quarter of the nation's electorate and were now one of the nation's largest swing groups. Both parties began to aggressively woo the Catholic voters. Although the Catholic hierarchy could not dictate who Catholics voted for, they did have a substantial influence over the faithful in their dioceses. Politicians were aware that the bishops could direct significant time, energy and money to support the issues that were important to them. From their perspective, the bishops were eager to regain some of the influence that their predecessors had wielded in the earlier part of the 20th century. Since the 1970s non-Hispanic white Catholics have voted majority Republican very reliably while a majority of Hispanic or Latino Catholics have voted Democrat.
In his successful 1980 campaign against Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan won about half of the Catholic vote and a majority of Catholics who were non-Hispanic whites. "Reagan Democrats", many of them non-Hispanic white, blue-collar Catholics, comprised 25% of the Democrats who voted for Reagan, and formed an important part of his support in 1984 as well. Despite Catholic Geraldine Ferraro's presence on the Democratic ticket as Walter Mondale's vice-presidential running mate that year Reagan won 54 to 61% of the Catholic vote, only slightly different from the overall 59%. Although the majority of Catholics in 1984 remained Democrats, compared to 1980 Catholic votes switched to Reagan at about the same level as most Protestant groups. Reagan's vice president George H. W. Bush won about the same number of votes as Michael Dukakis, making 1988 the third presidential election in a row in which Catholics failed to support the Democratic candidate as they traditionally did.
Although about one third of Catholics voted for Bush's reelection in 1992, most Catholic defectors switched to independent Ross Perot, not the successful Democrat Bill Clinton. Unlike previous elections (such as in 1972, when George McGovern's Catholic support was eight percentage points higher than overall) the Catholic vote was not more Democratic than the overall electorate, but split almost identically to it. The trend away from a Democratic dominance of the Catholic vote continued in 1994, when for the first time in history Democrats did not receive a majority of Catholic votes in elections for the House of Representatives; as with 1992, the Catholic vote split resembled that of the overall electorate. White non-Hispanic Catholics however, remained majority Republican. This trend reversed slightly in 1996, when Clinton's share of Catholics in general was four percentage points ahead of overall, and they comprised about half of the margin between him and the unsuccessful challenger Robert Dole. The 1990s ended, however, with Catholics as "the largest swing vote in American politics" and with white non-Hispanic Catholics continuing to vote consistently Republican.
Their party independence continued into 2000, and Catholics became the large religious grouping that most closely reflected the total electorate, ahead of mainline Protestants. 50% of Catholics voted for Al Gore versus 47% for George W. Bush in the very close 2000 election. 52% of Catholics voted for Bush's successful reelection compared to 47% for the Catholic John Kerry in 2004, versus 51% to 48% overall. Amongst white Catholics the figure was higher, with George W Bush receiving 56% of white Catholic votes. Barack Obama, who chose the Catholic Joe Biden as his running mate, received 54% of the Catholic vote in 2008 compared to John McCain's 45%, close to the overall 52% to 46%. In 2012 Obama and Biden faced Mitt Romney and the Catholic Paul Ryan. Obama won 50% of the Catholic vote to Romney's 48%, close to their 51% and 47%, respectively, of the overall vote. In 2016 the Republicans' Donald Trump chose Mike Pence—who describes himself as evangelical Catholic—as his running mate, while the Democrats' Hillary Clinton chose the Catholic Tim Kaine as hers. The victorious Trump-Pence ticket received 52% of Catholics' votes compared to Clinton-Kaine's 45%.
In some regions such as the "Mountain West" region, it is estimated that since the 1980s 42% of white Catholics vote Republican whereas only 20% vote Democratic. White Catholics who are registered Democrats are also shown to defect to the Republican party in massive numbers during election years. This was particularly true during both of Ronald Reagan's presidential elections, as well as the Nixon-McGovern race. White Catholics who are registered as Republicans are substantially less likely to defect to the Democrats during election years.
