Why Wesleyans Tilt Republican

I realize many readers of the Tuesday Column are from other denominations but maybe your denomination has a similar story—Wesleyans tilt Republican when they vote. Here is why I think that’s true.

1. Anti-slavery.

The Wesleyan Church was founded in 1842-43 by Methodists who left their denomination when it refused to condemn slavery as sin. The new denomination adopted as their first resolution a condemnation of slavery[1]. All of the first Wesleyans were active abolitionists during the twenty years leading up to the Civil War. Within ten years of this new denomination’s founding the Republican Party was born eclipsing the dying Whig party and electing as its first president, Abraham Lincoln in 1860. With the Democrats defending slavery and the Republicans seeking to limit slavery it was natural for the early Wesleyans to vote Republican. When the war was over, it was natural for Wesleyans to continue to side with the Republican party’s attempt to drive through the 17^th amendment to the constitution which extended voting rights to African-Americans—which finally happened in 1913. Republicans were anti-slavery and pro-voting rights for African-Americans so they stuck with the Republicans.

2. Women’s suffrage

Wesleyans were also pro-woman’s rights from the beginning, ordaining women from the start and continually (except for a twelve year period in 1879-1891). So it was natural for Wesleyans to support the 19^th amendment which extending voting rights to women in 1921. Immediately after the Civil War (1867) the Wesleyan General conference adopted a resolution supporting women’s suffrage in Kansas[2]. In the Wesleyan fight for woman’s rights they found better support from Republicans than Democrats.

3. Prohibition.

Part of the Wesleyan keenness to extend voting rights to women was the hope that women would be a voting block to help banning the manufacture, sale and use of alcohol, “Prohibition.” While both Republican and Democrat Presidential candidates avoided the subject in their campaigns, Democrat President Woodrow Wilson vetoed a 1919 prohibition bill making Wesleyans suspicious of Democrats. The prohibition bill was passed over Wilson’s veto and once ratified became law for the next 12 years. Wesleyans thought prohibition was a good idea. Wesleyans still prohibit drinking of alcohol by its full members and all its non-Wesleyan faculty at its colleges and Universities. The 1932 Democrat party platform supported repeal of prohibition, and the Democrat presidential candidate, Franklin Roosevelt promised repeal if elected. The 19^th amendment repealed prohibition by Christmas 1933. While it is true that Republican politicians used alcohol personally quite as much as the Democrats, when it came to platforms and rhetoric the Wesleyans saw Republicans as anti-alcohol and the Democrats as the party promoting booze.[3]

4. Anti-Catholicism.

Wesleyans got caught up in American anti-Catholicism like most other Protestant denominations. Indeed, prohibition signaled this division… with Wesleyans, Baptists, Presbyterians and Quakers supporting Prohibition while the Episcopalians and Roman Catholics saw nothing wrong with drinking alcohol. But Wesleyan fear of Catholics went deeper than booze. Many Wesleyans believed what they heard from their camp meeting evangelists—the Roman Catholic Pope was probably the Anti-Christ and any Catholic politician could not be trusted. The Democrats presented the first Catholic nominee for President, Al Smith, in 1928.[4] He lost to Republican Herbert Hoover. Wesleyan saw the Democrats again nominate a Catholic in 1961, John Kennedy. In both cases Wesleyans and other evangelicals worried that the anti-Christ would rule the country if a Catholic were elected. Republicans have still not nominated a Catholic to this day, so once again the Republicans were more trustworthy to many Wesleyans.[5]

5. School prayer.

In 1963 Madalyn Murray O’Hair won an 8-1 decision by the Supreme Court which banned required Bible reading and prayer in the public schools (Murray vs. Curlett). This resulted in an informal conservative “moral majority” backlash movement to restore Christian prayers and Bible reading to schools through an Amendment to the US Constitution. Most Wesleyans at the time thought Christian prayers should be returned to public schools and the Republican politicians often promised to produce this change. Most Wesleyans hoped they would.[6] Democrats were silent on the school prayer issue or even argued against required religious prayers in schools. Once again Wesleyans sided with the Republicans.

6. Women’s rights--ERA

The Equal Rights Amendment to the US constitution has been on and off the table since the 1923. It was again passed in 1971 and sent for ratification (which failed). Many Wesleyans believed the ERA would mean more than equal pay for equal work (which most support). The rising “Christian right” warned that all bathrooms would become unisex and the amendment would work against women staying at home to be proper mothers and wives. Republicans generally opposed the amendment while Democrats supported it. Wesleyans tilted toward the Republican Party position and fought ratification of the ERA.

7. Abortion

In 1973 when the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that no state could outlaw a woman’s right to an abortion so long as the fetus was not “viable” outside the mother womb, then later ruled (Doe v. Bolton) that an abortion could even be performed when the “health of the mother” was jeopardized (defining health broadly)Wesleyans hardly noticed. The denomination had no stance on abortion and few Wesleyans talked about it. When Melody Green argued for evangelicals to rise up to fight abortion, few Wesleyans responded. Eventually (in 1984) the Wesleyan Church approved an “admonition” to its members to be anti-abortion (even though it never made a binding rule for members about abortion). But as any old-timer knows, there are rules and then there are rules. There are written rules we ignore while there are unwritten rules we enforce. I have never met a Wesleyan who is not anti-abortion. Probably they exist, but I’ve never met one. Politically the dividing line is clear—most Republicans are anti-abortion while most Democrats are pro-choice. Like prohibition before, many Wesleyans became one-issue voters on abortion and thus tilted strongly toward Republican candidates since the early 1980s .[7]

8. Gay rights.

The most recent issue where Wesleyans have aligned with Republicans more then Democrats is “gay rights.” While there are homosexuals in both parties, the Republican Party has been more officially anti-gay than the Democrats. Initially Wesleyans (like other evangelicals) argued for legal discrimination against homosexuals in the hiring of teachers or the renting housing. They argued that homosexuals should be banned from the military altogether and interrogated to se if they were gay. Later the argument shifted to opposing same-sex civil unions and same-sex domestic partnerships or granting insurance benefits to same-sex couples. Later still the battleground shifted to opposing same-sex marriage. In 1999 Vermont established civil unions for same-sex couples. In 1996 congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act forbidding the federal government from recognizing same sex unions but that bill also left the matter for the states to decide. Fourteen states have amended their constitution to ban the legal recognition of full same sex marriage while eleven[8] other states have passed civil unions, domestic partnerships or even allowed same-sex marriage. In general Republicans are more in harmony with Wesleyan views of marriage then Democrats which tilts Wesleyans toward the Republican party.

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Of course there have been other issues, but these were the most pressing issues of the last 165 years and the ones which repeatedly tilted Wesleyans (and perhaps other evangelicals?) toward the Republican Party.

Since the election occurs on the same date as the official release of this [early] column, my question this week is not about McCain or Obama (let’s be strong enough to restrain ourselves). What I’d like the church to discuss is, “What does this history teach us about our political action?” When viewed over 150+ years are there any lessons from history for wise Christians to learn? What are they? Be thoughtful and insightful.

So what do you think?

During the first few weeks, click here to comment or read comments

Keith Drury   November 4, 2008

WWW.TuesdayColumn.com

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[1] Resolved that the holding or treating human beings as property or claiming the right to hold or treat them as property is a sin against God, a sin in itself, a sin in principle, and a sin in practice; a sin under all circumstances , and in every person who so holds or treats human beings or claims the right so to hold or treat them, and no apology can be permitted in the justification of the act. Wesleyan Ant-slavery convention, Andover, Mass. December 1842 Page 5 (resolution 1) Wesleyan Church Archives, Indianapolis, Indiana

[2] Reformers and Revivalists, Wayne Caldwell, editor. Page 56-59

[3] Eighty years later, in 2008 the Wesleyan Church executed a partial repeal of its own rules of “prohibition” for members when the General Conference extended local voting rights to its drinking “Community Members” ;-)

[4] Technically the first Roman Catholic nominee for President was Charles O’Connor in 1872, but he was the nominee of a group that split from the Democrats, the “Bourbon Democrats.”

[5] The anti-Catholic posture of Wesleyans diminished in the last decade of the 20^th century as Wesleyan found an ally in the anti-abortion movement, though anti-Catholicism continues fairly strong in some parts of the denomination.

[6] Actual Republican platforms shifted to “voluntary prayers” over time and the issue all but disappeared when Republicans (and Wesleyans) took up the more pressing issue of abortion.

[7] The ability of Republicans to deliver on the abortion issue has been disappointing, but most Wesleyans say “it would be even worse” if Democrats were in command. Many Wesleyans favor a pro-life amendment “extending human rights to the fetus” as Rick Warren states it, more than merely overturning Roe v Wade which would allow states the right to decide for themselves. The root of this pro-amendment position is in the church’s earlier stance against slavery, where Wesleyans insisted that slavery should not be a “states rights” decision but outlawed nationally since a slave is a full human being. Some in the anti-abortion movement have given up on a constitutional amendment as impossible and hope instead for restricting the number of abortions by letting the states decide, which was what happened when prohibition was repealed—some states “stayed dry” for decades afterward, and there continues to be hundreds of US counties where prohibition is still the law of the county.

[8] The states that have established one or another kind of same-sex arrangements are Vermont, Mass. California, Iowa. Conn, Hawaii, Maine, NJ, Wash. NH, Oregon, & DC. On November 4, 2008, California will vote on Proposition 8, a referendum against full same-sex marriage which may allow for some lesser civil unions or partnership but not “marriage.”