A little more kindness would do | Photo: Unsplash/
Matt Collamer
A new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute reveals Republicans believe discrimination is lessening in America.
The nonprofit, which specializes in survey on a variety of topics relating to religion, conducted this research in June and July 2018.
They spoke to 2,003 adults across America, based on bilingual (English and Spanish) interviews. The respondents consisted of both men and women, various political ideologies (Democrat, Republican, Independent), race, ages, and religious views.
Wedding Cakes, Same-Sex Marriage, and the Future of LGBT Rights in America is split into three sections: the Supreme Court and LGBT rights, Donald Trump’s policies, and perceptions of discrimination.
Attitudes towards business, religion, and discrimination
Though Americans at large are mostly evenly divided on whether businesses have the right to refuse customers based on religious beliefs, there has been an increasing support for this in recent years.
PRRI figure | Photo: PRRI
As the figure shows, there has been an increase in this attitude among every surveyed group from last year to this year. Still, there is a clear divide among certain groups, such as Democrats and Republicans, and men and women.
Interestingly, this data goes against a Reuters/Ipsos survey from June, which revealed 72% of respondents did not believe businesses had a right to refuse customers.
Elsewhere, a majority of Americans agree on certainl LGBTI rights. 64% support same-sex marriage, which is consistent with other polls, and 62% believe Obergefell was a good decision and should be upheld. Another 71% believe in legal protections for LGBTI people.
Trump isn’t helping
The survey further revealed that most people believe Trump isn’t helping, and is in fact huring, most marginalized communities.
PRRI figure 2 | Photo: PRRI
Naturally, the biggest divide is amongst Democrats.
Where only 2% of Democrats believe Trump is ‘mostly helping’ immigrants, trans people, and gay and lesbian people, and 3% for women, the ‘mostly hurt’ results are all well over 50%.
Republicans, meanwhile, are more torn and evenly divided, except for when it comes to women.
15% and 19% of them believe Trump is ‘mostly helping’ trans and gay and lesbian people, respectively. 13% and 9% of them believe is he ‘mostly hurting’ them.
Is there discrimination in Trump’s America?
In its final section, the survey asked people about their perception of discrimination in America today.
PRRI figure 3 | Photo: PRRI
As the figure shows, Democrats believe discrimination has worsened for every marginalized group in America from 2013 to 2018, specifically for women and Muslims.
Republicans, on the other hand, believe discrimination has lessened for every group in dramatic drops.
Another figure reveals the specific attitudes towards LGBTI discrimination.
PRRI figure 4 | Photo: PRRI
For every group, more and more people believe discrimination against gay and lesbian people is bad.
The biggest jump is among men. 44% of men believed this discrimination was bad in 2013. Now, five years later, 63% of them believe the discrimination is bad.
What this survey also shows, overall, is that the partisan divide in America is drastically increasing.
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