Religious Fundamentalisms Affect on Intolerance for Civil Liberties

For hypothesis No. 1--people whose religious faith is fundamentalist are more likely to oppose civil liberties than people whose religious faith is moderate and people who are not religious--the data have shown that there is some truth and that there is a moderate negative correlation between religious fundamentalism and their tolerance of atheists, communists, homosexuals, militarists and racists. The strengths of these correlations varied. Religious fundamentalists were the least tolerant of permitting homosexuals speak than they were the other groups tested. The percentage of people who are not fundamentalist who would allow a homosexual to speak (89%) is 20 percentage points higher than the percentage of fundamentalists who would allow a homosexual to speak (69%). Likewise, the percentage of fundamentalists who would not allow a homosexual to speak (31%) is almost three times the percentage of non-fundamentalists who would not allow a homosexual to speak (11%) and almost twice as much as the percentage of people who would not allow a homosexual to speak (17%). Religious fundamentalists were also more likely not to allow a communist to speak.

Forty-three percent of fundamentalists would stop a communist from speaking compared with only 32 percent of all people and 28 percent of non-fundamentalists. People who were not religious fundamentalists were 17 percent more likely than religious fundamentalists to allow an atheist to speak and 22 percent more likely to allow a militarist to speak. Even with the group that religious fundamentalists were the most ambiguous about their preferences toward, racists, religious fundamentalists were 35 percent more likely not to allow them to speak than were people who were not religious fundamentalist. Forty-six percent of religious fundamentalists were opposed to allowing a racist speak compared with 38 percent of all people. Religious fundamentalists were more likely to not tolerate the speech of homosexuals and communists than were people who were not religious fundamentalists. To a lesser extent, religious fundamentalists were more likely than their counterparts to not tolerate the speech of militarists and atheists. And, to an even lesser extent, there was a tendency toward not tolerating racists to speak.

For hypothesis No. 2--the more educated a person becomes, the more likely they are to support civil liberties--the data have shown that there is some truth and that there is a moderate negative correlation between people with less than a bachelor's degree and their tolerance of atheists, communists, homosexuals, militarists and racists. The strengths of these correlations varied. Higher education's strongest effect was to lessen disapprobation of communists, militarists and atheists. Only 14 percent of people with bachelor's degree or greater did not want a communist to speak, compared with 38 percent of people with at least a bachelor's degree. More people with at least a bachelor's degree (86%) would allow a communist to speak than would all people (68%) or people with less than a bachelor's degree (62%). People with less education were more than twice as likely to not want a militarist to speak (39 percent of people without a bachelor's degree would not allow a militarist to speak) than were people with more education (only 17 percent of people with at least a bachelor's degree would not allow a militarist to speak).

Education had a similar affect on tolerance of atheist speech; 26 percent of people with less than a B.A. would not allow an atheist to speak compared with 10 percent of people with a B.A. The 90 percent of people with a B.A. who would allow an atheist to speak is 12 percentage points higher than the number of all people who feel that way and 16 percentage points higher than people with less than a B.A. To a lesser extent, more education also makes people more likely to allow homosexuals and racists to speak. While there are relatively few Americans who do not approve of allowing homosexuals to speak (17%), Americans with B.A.s are more than three times less likely to disapprove of homosexual speech than are Americans with less than a B.A. (6% to 20%). Seventy-three percent of people with a B.A. would allow a racist to speak compared with 63 percent of all people and 59 percent of people with less than a B.A. Overall, higher education is correlated with a moderately higher tolerance for civil liberties and freedom of speech of unpopular social groups. Tolerance of communists and militarists is the most affected by higher education.

For hypothesis No. 3--the more conservative a person's political ideology, the more likely they are to oppose civil liberties--"the data have been inconclusive. Political views were not shown to have strong or moderate correlations with tolerance of minority viewpoints, and in the case of communist speech there was no correlation between political views and tolerance. The strongest correlation (chi-square p-value=0.00, Phi coefficient= -.10) was the slight to moderate, negative correlation between conservative political views and allowing homosexuals to speak. People without conservative political views were only two percentage points more likely to allow homosexuals to speak than was the average American (86% to 84%), but they were 7 percentage points more likely than was a person with conservative political views (79%). While the remaining polviews data are not significant to merit examination, it is worth noting that--though small--the phi coefficients were all negative, signifying a slight correlation between politically conservative views and intolerance for minority speech.

Multivariate findings

After controlling for education, there are still correlations between religious fundamentalism and intolerance of civil liberties. Education increases tolerance of civil liberties for religious fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists. However, the strength of the correlations tends to lessen slightly. The strongest initial correlation--religious fundamentalism and disapproval of homosexual speech--remains the strongest correlation in multivariate analysis. For people with less than a bachelor's degree, 87 percent of those who are not religious fundamentalists approve of homosexual speech compared with only 66 percent of religious fundamentalists. For people with at least a B.A., the spread is smaller but still significant--96 percent of those who are religious fundamentalists tolerate homosexual speech compared with 82 percent for religious fundamentalists. In addition, people without a B.A. who are not fundamentalists were five percentage points more likely to support homosexual speech than religious fundamentalists with a B.A. (87% to 82%).

The correlation also held up well for tolerance of communist speech. Non-fundamentalists with B.A.s were more likely to support communist speech (88%) than were fundamentalists with B.A.s (76%). Non-fundamentalists without B.A.s were also more likely to support communist speech (66%) than were fundamentalists without B.A.s (53%).

The correlation between religious fundamentalism and tolerance of freedom of speech was also only slightly diminished in the case of racist speech. Sixty-four percent of fundamentalists with B.A.s would allow a racist to speak compared with 75 percent of non-fundamentalists with B.A.s. Fifty-two percent of fundamentalists without B.A.s would allow a racist to speak compared with 62 percent of non-fundamentalists without B.A.s.

This tendency of religious fundamentalists with B.A.s being less tolerant of free speech than non-fundamentalists with B.A.s was not shown to be statistically significant in the case of atheist and militarist speech. Nonetheless, the data point to a general trend--for people with B.A.s and for people without B.A.s--of religious fundamentalism being correlated with less tolerance for permitting social minorities the opportunity to speak in a public setting. Higher education increases tolerance of social minorities in approximately equal proportions to religious fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists.

Sources

Cohrs, J. Christopher. 2005. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 5(1): 263-276

General Social Survey

Kierst, Mary K. 2007. Southern Sociological Society. Atlanta.

Wilcox, Clyde and Ted Jelen. 1990. "Evangelicals and Political Tolerance." American Politics Quarterly 18(17):25-46.