Young Voters Pose Moral Challenge

The battle for the White House in 2008 will be decided by a new type of

voter. This voter is now enrolled at a college or university near you.

According to a study conducted by the Harvard University Institute of Politics entitled, Redefining Political Attitudes and Activism, the battle for the White House in 2008 will be decided by a new type of voter.

This voter is now enrolled at a college or university near you.

Many
students who fit this bill are African American and Hispanic. Questions
of faith and morality will guide their decisions at the polls. However,
this emerging influence in American politics, dubbed the Religious
Centrist, thinks of faith and morality in much broader terms than we
are used to hearing within the conventional discourse. While abortion,
gay marriage, and stem cell research have been marketed by the
Republicans as the “Big Three”, these savvy students also highlight the
war in Iraq, education policy, and the Bush administration’s apathetic
response to the effects of Hurricane Katrina, as critical moral
issues.  The Harvard Institute reports that the broadly defined
moral direction of the country is a central concern to student voters-
especially African Americans. 

Link: www.iop.harvard.edu/pdfs/survey/fall_2005_execsumm.pdf

This study has significant implications for
African American faith communities and the Democratic Party. 
These young people seem to demonstrate a level of theological
sophistication that ought to put most proponents of narrow moral
discourse to shame. It seems that these young voters are moved by an
inward sense of the relationship between this nation’s treatment of
“the least of these” and the quality of the nation’s faith life.
Unless, the black church and the Democratic Party is able to broaden
their faith language from  mere issues of personal piety to
include issues of justice and equity,  both institutions will find
their words and campaigns falling on deaf ears.