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.

2 comments:

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.

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