Editorials

Alabamians are a religious people. When church attendance is calculated, we rank right up there at the top. And we financially support the churches we attend. We read the Bible. We pray. And we believe.

Yes, we are a very religious people.

But do we vote for candidates because of the stand they take on issues that are important to religious advocacy groups?

Prior to the last election, Christian Action Alabama (formerly the Christian Coalition of Alabama) sent out a questionnaire to every candidate. Then they tallied the results and sent the tallies out to supporters (you can find them at www.christianactionalabama.org.)

The questions varied according to the office sought, but were generally focused on issues like abortion, gambling, same sex marriage, stem-cell research and taxes (keeping taxes low has apparently become a religious issue).

Every Republican candidate responded, usually with the answers the CAA wanted.

Only a handful of Democrats took part.

Now even though the CAA says it is issue-driven and does not endorse candidates, apparently Republicans felt answering the questions as they did would get them votes, while the Democrats suspected an ambush and refused to play along.

But did answering make any difference?

You tell us.

Bob Riley answered all the questions. Lucy Baxley did not respond.

Bob Riley won.

Drayton Nabers answered all the questions. Sue Bell Cobb did not respond.

Sue Bell Cobb won.

And so it went. The position candidates took or did not take on CAA issues might have made a difference to some voters, but apparently not to many.

Down south an incumbent legislator who built his campaign around his 100 percent rating on the CAA’s legislative scorecard was defeated.

At the other end of the state, two senators who wrote on their questionnaire that they opposed video gambling at dog tracks were outed by the CAA for having voted for a dog-track video gambling bill.

Yet despite this revelation, and even though both voted against CAA-favored causes almost as much as they voted for them, both won re-election.

Now does this mean that Alabamians are not as religious as thought? Is the state drifting over to the secular side?

Not hardly. We Alabamians are still a religious people. But our beliefs are diverse, full of alternatives and exceptions. When we cast our ballots we consider many issues and we consider them in different ways.

It is pretty hard to put that diversity into a questionnaire and on a legislative scorecard. Voters know that. Hopefully candidates and advocacy groups have finally gotten the message.