I know there are plenty of polls in regards to gay marriage, but I don’t ever see them broken out by religious attitudes. So I looked at the GSS at the MARHOMO, “Homosexuals should have right to marry,” variable for 2008. I then cross-referenced with the “GOD” variable, which asks people about their confidence in the existence of God. The trendlines are as you would expect, but there is more diversity of belief than I suspect many would have assumed.
Compare to Age:
Forty-one percent of atheists not in favor of gay marriage? Not possible. Somebody fiddled with the numbers–religious bigotry is the ONLY reason that anyone could possibly oppose it.
The previous post on this blog by Bradlaugh clearly illustrates that your statement is incorrect, even if you disagree with his points. While there may be a correlation between religious views and views towards the place of homosexuality within society, there is no iron law that determines one’s views.
🙂 add the “not serious” tag ron!
I would say religion is almost equally an excuse for societal homophobia as a cause. Much of it has to do with social conformity and gender roles (a guy on the receiving end of a sexual act is not deserving of respect in many cultures). I live (now) in Italy and the teenagers who cut my phone line and steal the bills from my mail box are not doing it for religious reasons. Last week I read some poor 18 year old girl in Naples gave a kiss on the cheek to her girlfriend in a public square – so some young men smashed a bottle in her face. Because she wasn’t interested in guys. In Mediterranean countries there is an honor culture and a lot of gays and lesbians are discriminated against publicly to protect family honor, regardless of religious belief. Also secular right-wing extremism and extreme nationalism are common in many European countries and are bad for gays, esp. in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. It’s an attitude whereby young nationalist men want to show that no Romanian/Serbian/Bulgarian gay is tolerated to project a macho image against the neighboring countries, it’s not a religious thing. “Homosexuality is un-[insert nationality here]” is a common attitude. You here things like “gays are not real Americans” too, along similar lines.
The most atheist countries in Europe (the ex communist ones) tend to be the most homophobic. On the other hand there are a lot of religious people who are very sweet and non-prejudiced, even just blocks from the Vatican. Homophobia is a personality thing. Most people just don’t care about gays. Religion can just push you over the edge if you are already inclined to controlling other people or are just really gullible, but any ideology can do that as well.
a Sample size of 39? Good Grief I wonder what the MOE would be for something like that?????
I can believe the numbers though, after all, we are affected by the culture we’re raised in, and athiests/agnostics will always have some latent remains from whatever culture they were raised in. No one can erase their past, even if they’re loath to admit it.
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Conservatism as a disposition is opposed to any change in the status quo – gay marriage is a challenge to the status quo (more provocatively so if you are older or more religious). You don’t need to be a religious bigot to focus on the potential risks of a change as opposed to its purported benefits.
Too bad this “conservative temperament” is so selective. They can go crazy demonizing a small, politically powerless minority while allowing eight years of right-wing revolution under Bush that swept away our traditions of reduced spending, international leadership, civil rights and freedoms, habaeus corpus, trial by jury, Geneva conventions. Maybe some day the US will be so lucky as to get a real conservative party that is actually conservative instead of right-wing revolutionary
I would just like to point out that, though a lot of religions are against gay marriage, that doesn’t really have much to do with some one’s perspective on the subject. I don’t really think government or religion or culture has everything to do with how people perceive other people. You can grow up in a anti-gay culture with an anti-gay government and belong to a church that believes being gay is a sin and still accept others around you, whether they are gay or not. I don’t think anyone should blame anyone else’s homophobia on anything but that individual person.
What if you control for party identification?