What are the political views of the students at BHS?

The political views of Barstow High school students seem hard to predict. Some would say that they would expect us to be more conservative because we come from a town were churches outnumber gas stations and consistently votes Republican. However some would expect us to be more Liberal as we are young and younger people tend to lean more to the left. There is also the fact that a majority of our student body come from low income homes and rely on government programmes that conservatives want to cut.

I interviewed 50 random students at BHS to see if they were more Liberal or conservative.

Do more BHS students identify as Liberal or Conservative?

Surprisingly almost two thirds of BHS students identified themselves as liberals. But does their political affiliation aline with all of their political views? To find out I asked them a few political questions.

When asked if same sex couples should have the right to marry not only did almost all students who identified as liberals say yes but so did almost all students who identified as conservative. “I don't even think that anyone should even ask if someone agrees with gay marriage or not. The answer should automatically be yes with no question about it; just like for any other type of marriage” says Josh O'Neal; a junior who identifies as conservative.

Refreshingly it seems as though whether Liberal or Conservative BHS students believe in protecting LGBTQ+ rights and standing up for the rights of others in general.

When asked about abortion despite two thirds of students identifying as Liberal more than half of the students consider themselves to be pro-life.

Despite abortion being such a hot button issue amongst Conservatives there appeared to be no difference in the number of Liberal students who identified as pro- choice and of conservative students who identified as pro- choice. When I pressed the question to an anonymous junior of why he identified as a Liberal but was also Pro-Life  he told me that everyone has right to live especially innocent unborn children. When I asked a conservative sophomore why he identified as conservative and pro-choice. He said “ It's a womens body and she should get to decide what happens to it.” 

It seemed as though both sides seemed more concerned about protecting the rights of others than worrying about how it aligned with their own political or religious affiliation.  

In fact the fact that 68% of students identified as Liberals was fasinating because almost half of all students identified as identified as religious.

Maybe the reason why so many students identified as Liberals is because they have a different interpretation of religion than their parents did or maybe religion is not their defining factor on their political views. With the election coming up in 2020 and half of our current student body being able to vote I think there may be a chance that Barstow might finally switch from red to blue.