In 2002, Mike Hout and I identified a new trend in Americans’ relationship with religion. Around 1990, the percentage of respondents to the General Social Survey (GSS) who, when asked their “religious preference,” picked the “no religion” option starting rising, doubling from about 7 percent, where it had been for […] Read more »
Most Americans oppose political endorsements from churches
Earlier this week, a group of religious leaders presented a report to Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) in which they recommended an end to the long-standing ban on clergy endorsements of political candidates. … The Pew Research Center has never directly asked for opinions on the question of whether churches […] Read more »
Sorry, Wrong Number
As a statistician and political scientist, I care about getting the numbers right, and I am also interested in how people get things wrong. With economic statistics, it is often all about interpretation: were President Obama’s policies a failure given that unemployment was higher at the end of his first […] Read more »
What’s next for left-wingers?
… Satiated by its Obama-era policy accomplishments — government takeover of healthcare, legalization of marijuana in some states, options for immigrants, the end of wars and now gay rights — America’s left needs a new purpose, a unifying goal. Ideologues are primeval, emotional people that need a bonfire. So what […] Read more »
Gay Marriage: A Country Is Moving, Its People Not So Much
In coverage leading up to and reporting on the Supreme Court’s decisions last week removing some obstacles to gay marriage, a persistent meme has been that Americans in the last few years are increasingly OK with same-sex marriage. The evidence cited is public opinion polling, like this Gallup poll that […] Read more »
As a Long-Term Political Issue, Gay Marriage Will Be More Like Abortion than Integration
… When people discuss the inexorable rise of support for gay marriage, they talk about it like racial integration. The supporters of Jim Crowe [sic] were routed: it became impossible to publicly support segregation, and the opposition eventually died or flipped. But there’s another possibility: that gay marriage is somewhat […] Read more »