# Why are prohibtionary tendencies more common in Protestant areas? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 30, 2014, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945 "2014-09-30T05:42:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lazy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@Lazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazy)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/21 "2014-10-01T01:28:23Z")
I think it may have something to do with the political power of women. The temperance and prohibition movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were largely women’s movements. Women did not get the vote in Quebec provincial elections until the 1940s. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/22 "2014-10-01T01:30:36Z")
1. What Hector\_St\_Clare said. Plus . . . 2. These attitudes towards the proper use of state power may have their roots in competing theological perspectives, but we are talking culture here. Once the “Catholic” or “Protestant” attitude is embedded in a particular culture, it will of course influence people who are not actually Catholics or Protestants. The US is a historically Protestant-influenced culture, and a good many US Catholic bring a “Protestant” take on the proper use of state power to the abortion debate. 3. And of course these aren’t the _only_ cultural influences at work. In the US (and in the Anglosphere generally) discourse about abortion is often framed - on both sides - in terms of human rights, and this isn’t a Catholic perspective or a Protestant perspective as a an Enlightenment perspective. To my mind, on the question of abortion it makes for a particularly polarised and sterile discourse, with both sides tending towards absolutist positions from which little progress is possible. In many non-English speaking countries (both historically Protestant and historically Catholic) the discourse is conducted in different terms, with perhaps better results. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/23 "2014-10-01T01:48:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Bozuit** : > > Is it too simplistic to point out that Catholics have made a regular ritual out of drinking wine? I thought of that, too, but I’m not sure about the cause and effect. The ritual itself in some form or another is universal among Christians (though admittedly more prominent in Catholics). Many Protestants substitute nonalcoholic grape juice for the wine, but this could well be a result of their attitudes towards alcohol, which would then require a different explanation. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/24 "2014-10-01T01:55:46Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I thought of that, too, but I’m not sure about the cause and effect. The ritual itself in some form or another is universal among Christians (though admittedly more prominent in Catholics). Many Protestants substitute nonalcoholic grape juice for the wine, but this could well be a result of their attitudes towards alcohol, which would then require a different explanation. The unfermented grape juice thing is (a) modern, because until pasteurisation was developed unfermented grape juice was only available seasonally, and even then only in grape-growing regions, and (b) I think largely confined to US Protestant traditions. And, yes, I think it is the result of puritan attitudes towards alcohol, rather than the cause of those attitudes. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/25 "2014-10-01T02:02:43Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Well, the priest drinks wine. It was Protestant sects that extended the drinking of wine to the whole congregation, wasn’t it? Nope. That’s a _bizarre_ idea, in fact. It denies the entire point of the sacrament to not share the Blood of Christ among the entire community. (Christ didn’t say ‘take this, and eat it, for this is my body…but stay the HELL away from the wine…that’s just for me and Peter!’) ---
**Author:** ![Lazy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@Lazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazy)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/26 "2014-10-01T02:18:22Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > Nope. That’s a _bizarre_ idea, in fact. It denies the entire point of the sacrament to not share the Blood of Christ among the entire community. (Christ didn’t say ‘take this, and eat it, for this is my body…but stay the HELL away from the wine…that’s just for me and Peter!’) It is not really bizarre. In fact, it is sort of correct. At the time of the Reformation, in the Western church, it was usually only the priest who drank wine at communion. Protestants generally insisted that the whole congregation receive wine. In reaction, even those Catholic churches which were previously giving wine to the congregation gradually stopped. It was mainly in the twentieth century that Catholic churches began to return to giving wine to the congregation. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/27 "2014-10-01T02:48:55Z")
> [@Lazy](#): > > I think it may have something to do with the political power of women. The temperance and prohibition movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were largely women’s movements. Women did not get the vote in Quebec provincial elections until the 1940s. Women didn’t get the vote in federal elections until 1920, the year after Prohibition was enacted. That doesn’t mean women had no political power. Many states had allowed suffrage for state elections by then, and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was a powerful advocate for, well, temperance. (I’m not sure why you separate the temperance movement from the prohibition movement: they are the same thing.) Women certainly hated what alcohol did to families, and the evils of drink were publicized relentlessly for two generations. But it’s simply not true to say that temperance was largely a women’s movement. The Anti-Saloon League, run by men, was probably politically the most influential body, and both men and women strongly campaigned for prohibition in the “dry” states. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/28 "2014-10-01T04:39:05Z")
> [@](#): > > (I’m not sure why you separate the temperance movement from the prohibition movement: they are the same thing.) A large overlap, maybe, but not exactly the same. The temperance movement was trying to get less drinking. The prohibition movement was trying to get it by prohibiting drinking. The distinction is relevant, in light of previous discussion in this thread of the attitude that “X is wrong, but the government shouldn’t get involved in it”. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/29 "2014-10-01T14:07:04Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > A large overlap, maybe, but not exactly the same. The temperance movement was trying to get less drinking. The prohibition movement was trying to get it by prohibiting drinking. The distinction is relevant, in light of previous discussion in this thread of the attitude that “X is wrong, but the government shouldn’t get involved in it”. You could say this for the early days of the temperance movement, pre-Civil War. Voluntary reduction and appeals to saloons didn’t work, though. Post-war, every temperance organization started to urge stronger methods, and began agitating for government control. IOW, the temperance movement simply morphed into the prohibition movement so that by the time I was speaking of any differences were small and local. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/30 "2014-10-01T15:45:43Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > That doesn’t mean women had no political power. See: _Lysistrata_. It really is an interesting case study on how a movement, driven largely by morals and hysteria, could build to the the point where, essentially, the nation elected to cut its own leg off to save themselves from the peril of the immorality. Also a case where small-p prohibition of anything is likely to not only fail, but backfire in the most spectacular and damaging ways. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/31 "2014-10-01T17:29:17Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > See: _Lysistrata_. > > It really is an interesting case study on how a movement, driven largely by morals and hysteria, could build to the the point where, essentially, the nation elected to cut its own leg off to save themselves from the peril of the immorality. > > Also a case where small-p prohibition of anything is likely to not only fail, but backfire in the most spectacular and damaging ways. I’d say it’s more a case of spectacular hindsight. Alcoholism was a real problem. Drug use in general was real problem, because of the high alcohol, opium, heroin, and cocaine content of patent medicines and other unregulated products. Drugs other than alcohol started being regulated in the first decade of the 20th century, and that certainly was a good thing. Temperance, before and after it turned into prohibition, was part of a larger moral crusade that included a number of aspects we consider very highly today, including women’s suffrage and abolitionism. Both those were considered equally to be moral hysteria by many, but it’s a lot harder to make that case now. And the timing was just awful. WWI created huge changes in attitudes against moral issues and for a freer, less restricted society. If Prohibition had been passed passed before the war - when the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 required labeling of products and the Harrison Act of 1914 essentially taxed opium and cocaine out of business - the resulting backlash probably would have been far less. It wasn’t quite true that Prohibition passed “while our boys were away” but that was the perception it left. Prohibition turned out to be a spectacular failure. Drugs can’t really be eradicated from society and the trillions poured into the War on Drugs have mostly been wasted money with consequences of their own. But those other drugs have never risen to the pervasiveness that alcohol has in society, even with the increasing acceptance of marijuana. Minimizing the worst drug abuses by clamping done on cheap and easily available drugs is a positive good, although it should have been handled better. Alcohol and tobacco have always been the two worst drugs in American society. You can’t really defend them, even if alcohol can be moderately used without damage. The War against Tobacco is a moral good and a practical good at the same time and has worked unbelievably well since we were young. I remember how much smoke there once was in the world. Because the War on Alcohol was lost once, everybody says we can’t fight it again. Maybe true, but it’s not moral hysteria that makes me think that we could cut alcohol use as much as we have tobacco use and that would be hugely positive. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/32 "2014-10-01T17:45:57Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Alcoholism was a real problem. From the reports, yes - much worse than any modern era. > [@](#): > > Temperance, before and after it turned into prohibition, was part of a larger moral crusade that included a number of aspects we consider very highly today, including women’s suffrage and abolitionism. Both those were considered equally to be moral hysteria by many, but it’s a lot harder to make that case now. Well, however they were regarded in the day (or now), there’s a fundamental difference: Slavery and limited vote are societal problems; alcohol use is an individual one. It can be argued that abolition and universal suffrage are positive steps from pretty much any perspective except that of those who benefit from slavery and a limited electorate. Government getting into outlawing personal choices is nearly always a bad thing that falls of its own weight, given enough time. Prohibition in any form has been a failure in modern history. I don’t think it can be anything else except in the short run. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/33 "2014-10-01T19:12:24Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Prohibition in any form has been a failure in modern history. I don’t think it can be anything else except in the short run. Additions always work better than subtractions in societies. But I think their success rate is a different issue from whether they are good or bad. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/34 "2014-10-01T19:16:47Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Women didn’t get the vote in federal elections until 1920, the year after Prohibition was enacted. Not quite true. The 19th Amendment simply made it unconstitutional to deny the vote on account of sex. A considerable number of states, especially in the west, allowed women to vote in all elections, including presidential elections, before the ratification of the 19th Amendment. In the 1916 elections, for example, women were allowed to vote in 12 states, and Woodrow Wilson owed his re-election, in considerable measure, to the fact that he got the majority of the women’s vote in ten of those twelve states. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/35 "2014-10-01T20:00:37Z")
> [@Lazy](#): > > It is not really bizarre. In fact, it is sort of correct. At the time of the Reformation, in the Western church, it was usually only the priest who drank wine at communion. Protestants generally insisted that the whole congregation receive wine. In reaction, even those Catholic churches which were previously giving wine to the congregation gradually stopped. It was mainly in the twentieth century that Catholic churches began to return to giving wine to the congregation. Correct. It has always been the Church’s position that the Presence is complete from just the bread or just the wine – one does not need both. Early Protestants began distributing wine to the whole congregation to emphasize the personal relationship between the individual and Christ, and largely in response to this movement, the Council of Trent formalized the practice of having only the priest drink the wine, so as to emphasize that the bread alone was sufficient to accomplish the rite. AFAIK, it was only Vatican II that began loosening that process. Also, the churches descended from the earliest Protestants, such as the various Lutheran and Anglican churches, still generally use wine and not grape juice. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/36 "2014-10-01T20:19:14Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Slavery and limited vote are societal problems; alcohol use is an individual one. The results of alcoholism are very much a societal issue! Like them or not, the old shrews of the Temperance Unions weren’t wrong about the evils of alcohol. And in an era when women and children DEPENDED on the family patriarch to work and earn enough to support a family, they knew only too well how dangerous a drunken Dad could be. Eventually, most Americans decided correctly that the benefits of Prohibition weren’t worth the terrible costs (direct and ndirect) that came with it, but don’t kid yourself- alcohol IS as destructive as the Prohibitionists said it was. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/37 "2014-10-01T20:29:46Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Alcohol prohibition was pretty much a Protestant thing. It was strongest in the US, **UK** and Canada. Not strong enough in the UK to actually get into law; > **[Prohibition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition#United_Kingdom)** > > Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. The word is also used to refer to a period of time during which such bans are enforced. > Some kind of limitation on the trade in alcohol can be seen in the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1772 BCE) specifically banning the selling of beer for money. It cou... ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/38 "2014-10-01T20:47:21Z")
I’m wondering if rank-and-file Catholics have been less likely to participate in reform or protest movements out of a tendency to defer to the priesthood for leadership on social issues, while Protestants are encouraged to take moral crusading into their own hands. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/39 "2014-10-01T22:08:38Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Tom Tildrum** : > > Also, the churches descended from the earliest Protestants, such as the various Lutheran and Anglican churches, still generally use wine and not grape juice. Aren’t they all “descended from the earliest Protestants”? Well, aside from the modern sects like the Christian Scientists, Jehova’s Witnesses, and Latter-Day Saints, but they’re not exactly “Protestant”. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945/40 "2014-10-01T22:45:26Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > I’m wondering if rank-and-file Catholics have been less likely to participate in reform or protest movements out of a tendency to defer to the priesthood for leadership on social issues, while Protestants are encouraged to take moral crusading into their own hands. In the US, Protestant emigration was originally exactly that: a moral crusade which emphasized personal responsibility to the community. Catholic emigration was much later, and was more a forced economic flight than anything else – Ireland being the example here. Catholics were for most of their history in the US seen as an emigrant underclass, not likely to have a lot of power of organization for any cause. Maybe that has had something to do with it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-prohibtionary-tendencies-more-common-in-protestant-areas/699945.md?page=3)