Young’s words simply untrue

Dr. Ed Young, the founder and senior pastor of Houston’s Second Baptist Church, has every right to express his personal political views.

If he’s going to do so, though, he should take care to get his facts straight. That’s good advice for anyone, of course. But Young is a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention in addition to being the senior pastor of Second Baptist, which is one of the largest churches in the state.

He has a bigger platform than most people. And Young’s audience includes a number of Republican leaders like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick who might look to him for guidance.

Yet on election night, Young gave his followers bad information during an off-the-cuff speech at a watch party for outgoing GOP Rep. John Culberson, who represents Texas’s 7th Congressional District in western Harris County.

Culberson’s supporters must have been dispirited

at the time. The voters of the district, which was once represented by George H.W. Bush, had just elected a Democrat, Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, by a five-point margin.

So it’s no surprise that Young was asked to say a few words after Culberson gave his concession speech. But it’s a shame that rather than offering any wisdom or counsel, Young chose to attack the Democratic Party.

“It’s no longer a party. It’s some kind of religion that is basically godless,” Young said.

“And as long as America — this is represented by every Democrat I know — does not believe in the sacredness of the life in the mother’s womb, God will not bless America or make us a great nation,” he continued.

It’s possible that Young simply needs to meet some more Democrats. There are some Americans on the left who engage in political debates with idolatrous fervor. There are also some Americans like that on the right. And most of us see things with a bit more nuance, I think.

In fact, Culberson’s constituents are demonstrably capable of evaluating candidates on an individual basis, regardless of their own partisanship.

We know that because the 7th Congressional District overlaps with Texas House District 134, where Republican Sarah Davis won her bid for re-election, despite a challenge from Democrat Allison Lami Sawyer.

Fletcher won 56 percent of the vote in the precincts shared by both districts, whereas Davis won 58 percent.

And it’s worth noting, in this context, that Democrats — as a group — are actually much more religious than pundits perceive them to be.

In a 2014 study from the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of Republican and Republicanleaning voters described religion as “very important” in their life. The same was true of 51 percent of independent voters who participated in the study, and 47 percent of those who tend to favor Democrats.

In other words, it’s simply not the case that Democrats are “godless,” as Young put it.

The Democratic Party’s coalition includes a large number of secular progressives; that’s true enough. It’s also true that most white evangelical Christians vote Republican — even when the Republican Party nominates someone who doesn’t seem to share their values, like Donald Trump.

According to NBC’s exit polls, three-quarters of white evangelical Christians favored Republican candidates in this year’s midterms. By contrast, 70 percent of religiously unaffiliated voters opted for Democrats.

But neither group is a majority, even within their own party. In fact, religious “nones” made up just 17 percent of the electorate. White evangelicals made up 26 percent. Another 26 percent of the electorate was Catholic — and Catholic voters narrowly favored Democrats.

None of America’s religious groups are entitled to disproportionate influence over public life, of course. A foundational principle of this country is the separation of church and state. And political leaders shouldn’t try to leverage faith for partisan purposes, in any case.

Still, such data offer an interesting way of looking at the American electorate, which is more heterogeneous than partisans often insist.

Young might see the Democratic Party as “godless,” but he was wrong to make that assertion on election night. It’s one thing to disagree with Americans on the other side of the aisle, but partisans who mischaracterize each other in such broad strokes aren’t acting in good faith.

And religious leaders who do so are missing an opportunity to provide their followers with the guidance they might need.