Contact: Jeff Field, Director of Communications, The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, 212-371-3191, cl@catholicleague.org
NEW YORK, Aug. 20, 2012 /Christian Newswire/ -- Catholic League president Bill Donohue (photo) comments on a new study on charitable giving released today by the Chronicle of Philanthropy:
Liberals are the least likely to help
the poor. That's the inescapable conclusion of this new study: states
where people participate in religion at a high rate are also the most
generous; conversely, the least generous states are also the least
religious. Importantly, nine of the ten least generous states voted for
Obama in 2008.
This new study is consistent with
previous research. Sociologists Mark D. Regnerus and David Sikkink
looked at the data gathered by the Religious Identity and Influence
Survey and concluded that the more religious a person is, the more
likely he is to give to the poor; those who are nonreligious give the
least. In his book Who Really Cares, Arthur C. Brooks,
president of the American Enterprise Institute, examined this issue in
depth. He concluded that "Religious people are far more charitable than
nonreligious people." Similarly, in their book American Grace,
David Campbell of Notre Dame and Robert Putnam of Harvard found that
religious people are more generous than nonreligious people.
It is well known that liberals are far
more likely than conservatives to be nonreligious. It is also well known
that liberals talk endlessly about poverty. Yet in their daily lives
they do the least about it: they volunteer the least; they give less
blood; they are less likely to help someone find a job; and they donate
the least. Their idea of charity is to have the government raise taxes,
i.e., take money from others, and spend it on welfare programs.
The data have grave implications this
election season. Paul Ryan is being lectured by liberals--the most
miserly people in the nation--for not being responsive to the poor. It
doesn't get more absurd than this. Not until liberals catch up with
conservatives in their charitable giving are they in a position to
lecture anyone about the poor.
No comments:
Post a Comment