Friday, August 18, 2017

Does secularism make you more tolerant?

Maybe not.

Mr. Beinart, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you. We often tie secularism to young people and to tolerance. Is that misguided?

PETER BEINART: It can be misguided. To be clear, I'm not talking about secularism per se in the sense that a lot of people I'm talking about do believe in God. But there's that percentage who regularly attend church or another religious institution has declined a lot. And what you see is that conservatives who don't regularly attend church may be more supportive of gay marriage and drug legalization than those who do regularly attend church.

But there's some evidence that they're actually more anti-immigrant and perhaps more racially resentful. And we know that it's - Donald Trump did best among conservatives who don't regularly attend church. In fact, I think that shift is part of the reason that he won the Republican nomination.

5 comments:

Hal said...

"What you find in the data is that Trump did very well among self-described evangelicals. But he did far better among self-described evangelicals who don't regularly attend church. Cruz destroyed him amongst evangelicals who go to church regularly."

That may have been true in the primaries, but in the general election one finds the opposite to be the case for white conservative evangelicals according to this site. What is worse (from an anti-Trump perspective) is that church going white evangelicals are still more supportive than those who don't regularly attend church.

Starhopper said...

Well, I for one "go to church regularly", and I utterly loathe this so-called president. But I'm a Catholic, so I guess I'm not relevant to the above figures.

Hal said...

Good for you. Unfortunately the site I linked to states:

"And among white Catholics – as with white evangelicals – those who attend religious services at least once or twice a month are more approving of Trump’s job performance than are white Catholics who attend Mass less often (61% vs. 44%)."

Victor Reppert said...

That was April. I wonder where it is now? Particularly since conservative leaders are hitting him over the head. Flake here in Arizona, and now McConnell seems really ticked off. As a Republican President with a limited mandate but a Republican congress, the LAST thing you want is for the Senate Majority Leader to be angry with you, but that is what Trump seems to have done.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/22/politics/mitch-mcconnell-trump-relationship/index.html

Hal said...

I would hope it has declined greatly by now. Guess there is that core constituency that will support him no matter what, sad to say.