ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights that a study on the discussions of people's religious beliefs, political views, and the issues they "care most about" lead us to three important generalizations. First, the respondents' world-views tend to be rooted less in broad conservative versus liberal values – and even less in affiliations with political parties – than in "caring" about a couple of issues with which they have had personal experience and that are central to their identities. Four issues were named by roughly a third of our respondents: gay rights/marriage, religious tolerance, protecting the environment, and abortion. Homosexuality, religious tolerance, environmentalism, and abortion emerged as much more widely shared concerns than any others, suggesting that these are "generational" issues. The chapter highlights that many respondents voiced both the ethic/intuition of caring and the ethic/intuition of personal responsibility, and juxtapose or "frame-shift" between them.
