Americans, left and right, are against sex ed for kids under 10

 

According to a new Harris poll, 86% of Republicans and even 60% of Democrats believe sex education for young children under 10 should be left to the parents. This is a winning issue for the GOP even if most parents feel their personal rights are not being violated (left panel). 

Have liberals veered left on abortion?

Political parties have gotten more polarized in the past few years. Is this true for abortion attitudes, too? Using General Social Survey (GSS) data, I created the following graphs:

Liberal Women

In 2006, 60% of self-described liberal women favored abortion for any reason. That number grew and jumped from 2018 to 2021. It's now 88%. 

Liberal Men

We see the same trend for liberal men. By 2021, the percent in favor was 79%. Currently, few liberals have a problem with unrestricted abortion. 

Moderate Women

It's trended up for moderate women as well. They are now at 54%

Moderate Men

Moderate men are now at 57% approval. 

Conservative Women

By contrast, attitudes among conservative women have stayed fairly steady, the current level of approval is at  27%.

Conservative Men

The story is similar for conservative men. They are currently at 34% approval. Overall, conservatives have not changed much, whereas liberals have veered left on the issue, especially in the last few years. There is more consensus among liberals than conservatives. 

Media-types are hacks

Journalists are a bunch of clueless sub-mentals. A constant refrain on MSNBC is that the American people are foursquare against not raising the debt limit. Clearly the opinions of typical Americans are shallow and poorly based, but according to a recent poll of a national probability sample of 904 people, 60 percent oppose raising the debt ceiling.

Don't rely on the media for facts. Do your own homework because these people are hacks.

Do Muslims differ from other Americans on gender-and-politics questions?

Sample size = 25,284


This GSS graph shows the percent of Americans separated by religion who would vote for a female for President. You can see the Muslims are not out of the mainstream (there are 16 Muslim respondents). Thirteen percent of them say no compared to 14 percent of all Americans. Muslims are a young population, and younger people have more modern views of gender roles.  

Sample size = 26,970


People were also asked if they agreed with, "Most men are better suited emotionally for politics than are most women." (In other words, are men better liars). Muslims are more somewhat more traditional on  this question: 40 percent of them agree compared to 31 percent of all Americans. (There are 47 Muslims in this sample.)

O'Reilly: Blacks favor programs that transfer wealth from whites to themselves

Bill O'Reilly occasionally makes refreshingly candid statements for a big media guy. He states the blacks are much more supportive of Obama because they favor social justice programs which transfer wealth from whites to themselves.

Jews vs. those with no religion

My hypothesis is that Jewish Americans don't really differ from Americans with no religion on their political attitudes, except for on a small number of topics where Jewish experience may be unique. The thought is that Jewish folks, as a group, are about as secular as people with no religion, and secular people tend to be liberal. The table above compares the two groups. All the numbers are percentages except for liking Israel which is a mean score (with answers ranging from 0 to 9).  

There are quite a few significant differences (as indicated by the asterisks) but generally the differences are small, especially on the spending questions.  Both groups are liberals who want more spending for most liberal causes. Jews are more concerned with big city problems, probably because they are more urban.

Where the groups diverge the most is on a few unique issues. Jews are more pro-Israel, pro-immigrant, and pro-abortion. All three seem to be connected to Jewish culture, even abortion which has been viewed in the Jewish tradition more liberally than among Christians.