The statistics show that many Americans are not getting involved with religion anymore. Church attendance has been dropping in recent years. In 1976, 36-percent of women and 26-percent of men attended regular church services. In 2012, 22-percent of men and 28-percent of women attended church services.
Why is this happening? Why are fewer women going to church? There are many reasons. One possibility is the increase of women in the workforce. This cuts down on leisure time, so working women have less time to spend on religious activities.
The rate of women attending church also dropped in the ’80s because churches were getting involved in “Culture Wars.” Many churches are not very supportive of women’s rights.
Many churches are against abortion and birth control. Abortion was made legal with Roe v. Wade, and many Christians are still fighting against it.
In the Catholic Church, specifically, there has been a decrease in attendance with the sexual abuse allegations against many priests. Attendance in the Catholic church has dropped to 52-million from 55-million in 2007.
Also, many Catholics are still against women obtaining birth control, so that has alienated many women.
Many other religious sects are also against abortion and other women’s health rights. Conservatives in my state of Alabama tried to outlaw all abortions under any circumstances; luckily that law did not pass.
Many religious people also blame women for things like sexual assault. There was one preacher in Arizona that was assaulted because he was protesting outside of a school, saying women deserved to be raped.
Some of these groups require doctors to outright lie to women seeking abortions. Arizona passed a law saying doctors must tell women that abortions can be reversed. This is an outright lie.
Religious Republicans have said all kinds of kooky things about women’s reproductive rights. Mike Huckabee said this about women seeking abortions:
“When an abortion happens, there are two victims. One is the child, the other is that birth mother, who often will go through extraordinary guilt years later when she begins to think through what happened, with the baby, with her.”
No matter how you look at it, the numbers don’t lie, and extreme religious Conservatives have to be feeling the loss.
Featured image via Video
