are overrepresented<\/a> in the House and the Senate.<\/p>\n![\"Pew\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2017\/01\/Pew.png\")
<\/p>\n
As you can see, while 48% of the U.S. population is Protestant, 55.9% of the U.S. Congress is Protestant. Similarly, 21% of the U.S. population is Catholic while 31.4% of the U.S. Congress is Catholic. Those are some pretty serious differences! Why does this matter? It\u2019s true that there\u2019s no requirement that Congress reflect the demographics of the American people. If there were, Congress would be far more female and African American than it currently is.<\/p>\n
The problem is that if an issue, like, say, abortion were to come up on the Congress floor, one in three of the Senators and Representatives addressing the issue would belong to the Catholic Church,\u00a0which\u00a0expressly forbids abortion, in contrast to only one in five Americans. Similarly, if the issue at hand had to do with religious freedom, a Congress with only one religiously unaffiliated member would be far less likely to remember the interests of the 23% of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated than would a Congress where such Americans made up 23% of the congressional body.<\/p>\n
Check this out, I made a graph:<\/p>\n
![\"Congress\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2017\/01\/Congress.png\")
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth nothing\u00a0that Congress is 91.5%\u00a0Christian\u00a0while the nation as a whole is a\u00a0far\u00a0lower 71% Christian. The problem with this should be obvious\u2014such a Congress is far less likely to consider the needs and interests of religious minorities than it might otherwise be.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not saying that members of Congress and\u00a0incapable of considering and acting on the interests of all of their constituents. Clearly, they are capable of doing so\u2014though taking the time to research and understand every segment of their constituency would of necessity take a serious investment of time and effort. I\u2019m simply noting that it\u2019s human nature to be more in tune with the needs and interests of one\u2019s group\u2014be that race, religion, or gender\u2014and that getting outside of that is prohibitive.<\/p>\n
Remember this all-male panel at a hearing on contraception?<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-ny2iVAATpHg\/Tz2CYZjGyNI\/AAAAAAAANDQ\/75UFPM-H4u8\/s1600\/panel-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Many women were justifiably upset when pictures of this panel began circulating, because they didn\u2019t trust a panel made up solely of men to adequately\u00a0understand and represent their needs and interests when it came to contraception. The same is true when it comes to other issues, including issues that affect religious minorities.<\/p>\n
The problem isn\u2019t simply that the religious unaffiliated are underrepresented in Congress, but also\u00a0that Protestants and Catholics are overrepresented<\/em>.\u00a0It\u2019s not just that secular voices are not present in a representative way, but also that the influence and voice of Christian Americans is\u00a0amplified far beyond what\u00a0it would be if Congress was an accurate demographic reflection of the American people.<\/p>\nAnd frankly, that makes evangelicals\u2019 claims that Christians are being persecuted in the U.S. look downright strange.<\/p>\n
I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!<\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’ve seen some chatter about the underrepresentation of religiously unaffiliated Americans in Congress, but I want to phrase the issue a slightly different way—both Protestants and, especially, Catholics are overrepresented in the House and the Senate. Why does this matter?<\/p>\n
Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":31683,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n
Protestants and Catholics Overrepresented in Congress<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This makes evangelicals' claims that Christians are being persecuted in the U.S. look downright strange.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/protestants-catholics-overrepresented-congress.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Protestants and Catholics Overrepresented in Congress\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This makes evangelicals' claims that Christians are being persecuted in the U.S. look downright strange.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/protestants-catholics-overrepresented-congress.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-01-12T14:00:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-01-11T21:04:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2017\/01\/cross-587267_1920.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"432\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/protestants-catholics-overrepresented-congress.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/protestants-catholics-overrepresented-congress.html\",\"name\":\"Protestants and Catholics Overrepresented in Congress\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-12T14:00:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-11T21:04:15+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"This makes evangelicals' claims that Christians are being persecuted in the U.S. look downright strange.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/protestants-catholics-overrepresented-congress.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/protestants-catholics-overrepresented-congress.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2017\/01\/protestants-catholics-overrepresented-congress.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Protestants and Catholics Overrepresented in Congress\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. 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