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Sexuality, Political Polarization, and Survey Reports of Religious Nonaffiliation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2018

Philip S. Brenner
Philip S. Brenner*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Center for Survey Research, University of Massachusetts Boston
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Philip S. Brenner, Department of Sociology and Center for Survey Research, University of Massachusetts Boston. E-mail: philip.brenner@umb.edu
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Abstract

Survey estimates of the religiously unaffiliated in the United States—between 20% and 25%—make this group one of the largest “religious” categories in the country. Recent research argues that political polarization pushes political liberals and moderates to report no religious affiliation to distance themselves from religious conservatives. One key point of polarization behind this phenomenon is sexuality-focused politics, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) rights and discrimination. The current research uses a split-ballot survey experiment to investigate sexuality-focused political polarization as a cause of the reports of religious nonaffiliation. A sample of 2,238 respondents, stratified by sexual orientation (half LGBQ, half straight), completed a brief web survey starting with two randomly ordered series of questions on religion and sexuality. Findings suggest that sexuality-focused political polarization is not likely to be a primary cause of survey respondents’ claims of religious nonaffiliation.

Type
Article
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 153 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2018 

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Footnotes

The author would like to thank Justine Bulgar-Medina for her assistance with this study. The author is also grateful to the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. This research did not receive any specific grant funding.

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