There are some signs that religious Americans have become more tolerant of those who hold different religious views. But by no means has religious intolerance faded away.
That’s the conclusion of a new report by James Gibson, based on a national survey he conducted in 2007. (For an extended overview of the results, click here.) In brief, based on survey respondents’ answers to a series of questions, Gibson created an index of “religious traditionalism,” some defining characteristics of which are frequent attendance at religious services and belief in God and the devil. The respondents were also asked about their willingness to deny one or more political rights (e.g., to give speeches, hold demonstrations, and run for public office) to atheists. The basic result:
This relationship holds up, Gibson reports, even when other pertinent factors are taken into account.
This isn’t a novel or surprising finding, but that doesn’t mean that we should overlook it and move on to other, more “interesting” issues. Gibson speculates that the link between religious traditionalism and political intolerance may “become more serious for American politics in the future,” not less so. The core of this argument is that, in contrast to the long-standing disengagement of religious traditionalists from the political process, those who are highly religious are increasingly being mobilized politically. “To the extent that those with weaker commitments to democratic institutions and processes acquire influence in the political process,” he argues, “key democratic values such as political tolerance may be threatened. …Future research should therefore focus on methods by which all citizens—religionists included—can be persuaded to value tolerance more highly.”
{ 7 comments }
I wonder to what extent would this hold if tested for non-religious worldviews.
Looking at American history, I think it’s safe to say that there were times when denying fundamental rights “(e.g., to give speeches, hold demonstrations, and run for public office)” to socialists, let alone communists would be popular.
Did Gibson also see whether people who were more resolute in their atheism were more willing to restrict the rights of religious groups to participate (e.g. to give speeches, hold demonstrations, and run for public office)?
There were certainly some Prop 8 opponents last fall arguing that religious groups should not be allowed to participate in politics. They weren’t all atheists, of course, but I suspect that Gibson’s findings cut both ways.
I think that’s what Greg’s comment was getting at too (?).
Adam: I was a bit more interested in whether it holds for ideologues. I don’t mean to use that term in a normative sense, just referring to those who hold a particularly strong set of beliefs.
That said, I am also interested to see whether it cuts both ways as you say. The question of separation of church and state makes the political participation of religious parties a bit more complicated. However, if we’re talking at an individual level, some of those complications can be avoided.
Strange that all of the limitations on speech, debate, and freedom of action in business or to own firearms seem to get their greatest support from the irreligious. This study seems counter to campus speech codes, gun bans, smoking bans, hate crime laws and the recent assault on the Catholic Church’s right to organize itself as it sees fit that just occurred in Connecticut. This country was very religious and very free for 165 years. Sometime around 1970 is started to become less relious and less free. Correlation is not causation but…
Lee,
Thanks for posting this. The Monkey Cage is really getting interesting!
Commenters: You’ve raised some interesting points. I’m hopeful that Jim Gibson will respond to them.
Maybe this comment is late to the party, but…following up on Greg’s comment about denying rights to socialists, the question itself is biased in the same way as the old survey question “should socialists and communists have free speech” was biased to produce results showing people on the right were intolerant and people on the left were tolerant. If the question asked about denying a variety of other groups rights (following jjv’s suggestions, perhaps), then the results might be interesting.
Comments on this entry are closed.