Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Publications

  • report

    Who Flies the Flag? Not Always Who You Might Think

    America is a patriotic country. Pew’s political values surveys over the past 20 years have found overwhelming agreement with the statement “I am very patriotic.” In this year’s survey, 90% concurred, which is consistent with measures dating back to 1987. For many Americans, demonstrating patriotism means showing the flag. Overall, 62% say they display the […]

  • report

    Capital Punishment’s Constant Constituency: An American Majority

    (For more recent public opinion data on the death penalty, see a 2011 analysis.) by Robert Ruby, Senior Editor, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life In the last 35 years, beginning with its temporary moratorium on the death penalty, the Supreme Court has changed its view of capital punishment and done so more than […]

  • fact sheet

    From the Ten Commandments to Christmas Trees: Public Religious Displays and the Courts

    For most of the nation’s history, public religious displays were not controversial. But in recent decades, a growing number of citizens and civil liberties groups have sued towns, cities and states over religious symbols in the public square, arguing that these displays should be removed because they violate the First Amendment’s prohibition on government establishment […]

  • fact sheet

    Religious Displays and the Courts

    In a new series of occasional reports, “Religion and the Courts: The Pillars of Church-State Law,” the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life explores the complex, fluid relationship between government and religion. Among the issues to be examined are religion in public schools, displays of religious symbols on public property, conflicts concerning the free […]

  • report

    The Bloomberg Boomlet Drives 2008 Campaign Coverage

    Was it a tease, a trial balloon, or a trivial matter? New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision to shed his GOP label sure had the media buzzing last week. And while dramatic events inside Iraq generated substantial coverage, the policy debate over the war has slipped onto the press back burner in recent weeks.

  • report

    Religious Republicans: Hanging Tough with Bush

    by John C. Green The role of religious voters in the Republican Party has been highlighted by the sharp criticism of the Republican presidential front-runners – Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney – by conservative religious leaders. Are religious Republicans abandoning President Bush and perhaps the GOP as well? The latest national survey by […]