I posted this info once before showing the role religion and the religious play in anti-gay sentiment within the USA.

I use stats from the Pew Foundation. The Pew Foundation seems to me to be a credible source of information and polls on such subjects. The stats I use come from the foundation's "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey"

http://religions.pewforum.org/

First, looking at what groups are most homophobic. Go to the following link and click on "Social & Political Views" then on "Social & Political Views"

http://religions.pewforum.org/comparisons#

We see the top 5 groups that think "Homosexuality should be discouraged by society", they are:

76% of Jehovah's Witnesses
68% of Mormons
64% of Evangelical Church members
61% of Muslims
46% of Historically Black Church Members

It is an interesting list but by itself does not tell us much. The Catholic Church has anti-gay leadership the majority of Catholics within the USA are supportive of gays, 58% of Catholics agreeing with "Homosexuality should be accepted by society"

To understand the significance of the data above, another part of the survey must be looked at.

Go to the following link and click on Importance of "Religion in One's Life"

http://religions.pewforum.org/comparisons#

and look at the top 5 religions where the majority of the people believe that religion is very important to their lives:

86% of Jehovah's Witnesses
85% of Historically Black Church members
83% of Mormons
79% of Evangelical Church members
72% of Muslims

Those groups of religious that where the vast majority believe that religion is "Very Important" are the same groups that are the top 5 groups that think "Homosexuality should be discouraged by society"

Though more digging through the raw numbers would be needed to draw positive indisputable colorations, I do think these numbers are rather telling.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2010 01:05PM by MJ.

But Christians of any ilk disagreeing with empirical evidence is nothing new to me.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2010 03:50PM by MJ.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2010 03:47PM by MJ.

Did gay Christians vote and make you their spokes model? No, sorry, I know gay Christians that have seen the evidence I presented and agree with the fairly obvious conclusions shown.

These are mostly of the fundamentalist variety.

Does anyone have any idea what precentage of the gay population consider themselves Chrsitians? I have read that a large proportion of the gay community are either atheist or agnostic - which I can understand due to the rejection of gays by traditional Christian churches. I wonder if the advent of gay oriented and gay freindlier churches has made much of a differnce.

It makes things a mess and confusing.

I would say that those "religions where the majority of the people believe that religion is very important to their lives" are also those who would impose their religion on the live of society generally as exemplified by the statement "groups that think "Homosexuality should be discouraged by society"".

The case you present centers around gays but I think the larger picture is these people would love to be able to control everyone - not just gays.

I would have to say that while I'm not surprised to see the JW's included i nthe two lists presented, I am somewhat surprised that they have not had more high profile involvement with anti-gay political movements. Muslims currently represent a very small minority of the US population, and the other three all had various degrees of mention with CA's Prop 8 or other movements to oppress gay people.

Did I just miss reports of JW's in the news?

The poll is does not have sufficient evidence to show this using the available numbers, so I stick with the homosexuality issue.

I have no problem with sticking with the issue of gays. There is certainly plenty that society generally needs to do to protect the rights of our gay population.

My only point in expanding it - which I doubt I made clear - was to point out that abusive behavior is rarely restricted to a single person or group. What these religious folks have in mind for gays also extends to everyone else because we are all regarded as marks to be brought under their control. Gay as a group are merely the high profile example of what they would have in store for all of us if given the chance.

As Martin Luther King, Jr wrote in a letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

I agree with everything you said.

My point is, I was using a set of poll numbers to make a point. If I could have used those particular numbers to make the broader point you want to make, I would have. Unfortunately the poll did not address other issues that would have allowed a look at the broader interpretation. This is not saying you are wrong, it is just saying that the poll did not address the broader issues.

I was using empirical information to back up my claims. I agree with your claims about it being a broader issue, but I have no empirical information that would back up those claims. If you have the empirical evidence to back up your claims regarding the particular groups I pointed out, I would love to see it.

I'm actually puzzeled, I am agreeing with you on the claim you are making, but you are acting as if I am arguing with you. I am only pointing out that there is a difference in making an unsupported claim, as you have done, and using empirical evidence to draw conclusions, which is what I was doing.

That was not my intent. My second post was only to explain my intent because I felt cut short by you. Perhaps this is left over from past conversations where didn't seem to agree? I don't know.

I had no and have no intent of disagreeing with the point you made. I brought up the broader issue only to say that the numbers you present concerning gays should be of cencern to anyone who values their freedom from what controlling groups. I even said I doubted I was very clear with my intent in the second post.

Actually, I though we were good. I am a bit surprised that you seem to have taken offence at my response above.

I wish the numbers where their to support the broader issue, it would make the claim more compelling, but sadly they are not.

I've read my original response and honestly, I don't see where you should feel cut off. You made the statement "The way I read these numbers" so I felt the need to clarify that I agree with your point about a wider problem, I do not agree that the numbers I used supported a wider interpretation. If you can find where those numbers apply to other groups than homosexuals, I would like to see your explanation as to how.

It was an inference I made and not a result of the data you presented.

Taking up your challenge, however, I thought to look at the problem of supporting the inference with data. The problem, as I see it, is the data can only be issue driven and the poll needs to reflect a position on a social issue or policy. If asked of religious people if they would want to legislate their religious lifestyle for everyone, I believe we would get a resounding "No" answer, but policy by policy, they would agree that instituting the standards of their religious lifestyle would be best for all Americans. The recent Healthcare reform suffers from the same phenomenon. A majority of Americans say when polled that they do not favor the recent Healthcare overhaul, but when those against the reforms are asked about 10 specific provisions, they agree on average with 70% of the provisions in the bill.

To address this problem, I thought to attempt to look at several social issues with the intent of establishing a trend among religious groups. The more any particular group responds in favor of policies that extend to all people in America, the more the inference is supported. I would begin with the data you provided regarding homosexuality and look for other data to support the wider conclusion.

The second problem with supporting the general inference I made is that fewer surveys appear to ask what ought to be done or what policy should be enacted than ask about specific behaviors. For example, I thought to look at how alcohol consumption might be regulated by various religions in America. Anyone familiar with the alcohol policy in Utah knows that the state heavily regulates who can sell alcohilic beverages in the state. But the studies are more concerned with alcohol consumption as associated with religion rether than alcohol sales policy. The data reflects more who does or doesn't consume alcohol than who should be allowed to. Using this data requires the inference that if members consume less alcohol that the general population then they would favor legislation for all individuals restricting alcohol consumption. The data would not support this inference. As a result, I will provide a couple links I reviewed, but won't report the data since it does not directly support the claim.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T63-4KXVCY8-1&_user=10&_coverDate=03%2F16%2F2007&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=69bccec80d2f083dde37da91eb281c86&searchtype=a
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6688972/Religious-affiliation-and-alcohol-consumption.html

Abortion is a better example and the polls taken do reflect a policy question. The following link is to a Pew Forum poll of "Abortion Views by Religious Affiliation".

http://pewforum.org/Abortion/Abortion-Views-by-Religious-Affiliation.aspx

There are 6 religious groups listed which favor making abortion illegal in most cases at a rate higher than the US population overall of 40%. They are as follows:

77% of Jehovah's Witnesses
70% of Mormons
61% of Evangelical Protestant Churches
48% of Muslims
46% of Historically Black Church Members
45% of Catholics

While only two points of data is not conclusive, it is interesting that the sequence of the top 5 religions is exactly the same as reported in your survey and begins the empircal data to support the contension of the wider inference made earlier that these religions would "would impose their religion on the live of society generally." To be even more specific, it would probably be more correct tosay that they would impose their religious values on the rest of society generally.

On you issue of abortion, looking at "illegal in most cases" means they favor LEGAL abortions in some cases. Looking at the link you posted, it seems clear that the majority of the people believe that abortions should be legal for some cases but not all. Yes, the poll you posted shows that some think most should be legal vs. those that think most should not, but all of them think abortion should be legal in some cases. So, looking at your abortion numbers as strictly an abortions should be legal yes or no viewpoint we find some different results.

When you look at the data to assess the issue of people believing that all abortions should be illegal, then the LDS drops out of the top 6 list. We find that 88% of Mormons believe that abortions should be legal to some extent. and only 9% think abortion should be illegal in all cases. Indeed the only people where the majority feel that Abortion should be outlawed are the Jehova's Witnesses.

In the case of abortion, the numbers can be looked at as saying that religious beliefs do not have the same impact on the abortion issue as they do on the gay issue.

On the abortion issue, the majority favor some regulation, something quite common in the medical field. Depending on how one looks a those numbers and the dramatic shift in the standing on the LDS, one can fairly make different conclusions.

This is why I did not drag the abortion numbers in. They do not have the clear cut indicators as the gay issue.