美国国家公共电台 NPR Faith Groups Get Out The Vote For The Midterm Elections

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Now, President Trump¹ has prayed with evangelicals at the White House. He's nominated judges to federal courts that his evangelical supporters like, and he has pleased them with his decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Now he has a request for them - get out the vote in November's midterm elections. But religious leaders on the left are inspiring their people to go to the polls, as well. NPR's Jerome Socolovsky has more.

JEROME SOCOLOVSKY, BYLINE²: In the heart of the Virginia Theological Seminary campus, there's a pub. And in that pub, the school's registrar³, Rachel Holm, is hosting a game of election trivia.

RACHEL HOLM: So what are the three topics millennial⁴ voters care about most when voting?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Themselves, themselves, themselves.

HOLM: No.

(LAUGHTER)

SOCOLOVSKY: Joking aside, Holm draws the attention of this 20 and 30-something crowd to a table that has a computer on it open to a local voter registration⁵ portal.

HOLM: What we're doing over here is if you want to check your registration status to see where am I registered to vote? If you have moved to Virginia and you have your driver's license⁶ and you've done that, we can get you registered to vote over here using the website.

SOCOLOVSKY: Registering students to vote may be different from Holms' day job of registering them for courses in subjects such as pastoral care or practical theology. But the leadership of this Episcopal seminary feels called in the Trump era to encourage young voters.

HOLM: Because of the 2016 election, I think that that really woke a lot of people up and saw that the religious right is so organized and so behind this candidate, and maybe we don't agree with a lot of their positions.

SOCOLOVSKY: When he was running for office, Trump promised to appoint conservative judges. So some key evangelical leaders argued that his personal history should be overlooked, and many voters seemed to have done just that. According to exit polls, 81 percent of white evangelicals cast ballots⁷ for Trump. And this November...

JENNA ELLIS: I hope the number is even higher.

SOCOLOVSKY: Jenna Ellis is with the James Dobson Family Institute in Colorado Springs, where she coordinates⁸ the Pray, Engage, Vote initiative. She's concerned what might happen with abortion⁹ or, say, a baker¹⁰ who refuses to make a cake for a same-sex wedding if Democrats¹¹ win the House or Senate and eventually get liberal justices on the Supreme¹² Court.

ELLIS: I would love to see even more evangelicals understand what is at stake in this election, understand what voting our values means.

SOCOLOVSKY: One Trump promise conservative evangelicals are excited about is a repeal¹³ of the Johnson Amendment¹⁴. It strips tax exempt¹⁵ status from faith groups that endorse¹⁶ candidates. Many other religious leaders oppose a repeal. They don't want their churches, mosques¹⁷, synagogues and temples drawn¹⁸ into political campaigning. But that's a luxury they can't afford, says Megan Black, a national organizer for the progressive group Faith in Action.

MEGAN BLACK: I think that the desire to remove one's self from the political arena¹⁹, especially today, when there is so much at stake for so many people, is a privilege that is exercised inappropriately.

SOCOLOVSKY: Her group is trying to get one million new or lapsed²⁰ voters out to the polls. For Faith in Action, the main moral issues are voter suppression, immigration crackdowns and police shootings. Back at the seminary, Dillon Green (ph), a first-year student from Alabama, believes in mixing his religion with his politics.

DILLON GREEN: So yeah. I mean, that's one of the reasons I'm passionate²¹ about voting is because I want to help be part of that to say, you know, I believe in Jesus Christ and I believe, you know, in liberal, progressive values.

SOCOLOVSKY: Green hopes the religious left's renewed political zeal²² will yield fruit, but he also recognizes that conservative evangelical efforts to turn out the vote have been more productive. For both groups, the moral character of the country now hangs in the balance. Jerome Socolovsky, NPR News.