Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in December 2008 for the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life to look at the impact of religious voters in the 2008 election. John Green, a senior fellow in religion and […]
Rumors that Obama is a Muslim, the top religion storyline of the general election, started as early as 2004 but took hold in June 2008 as the general election phase of the campaign began. The rumors then maintained a stubborn presence, both in the press and in public opinion, throughout the duration of the campaign. […]
Updated Nov. 10, 20081 President-elect Barack Obama made a concerted effort to reach out to people of faith during the 2008 presidential campaign, and early exit polls show that this outreach may have paid off on Election Day. Among nearly every religious group, the Democratic candidate received equal or higher levels of support compared with […]
Bloggers last week focused on reports and predictions involving major changes to some of the country’s prominent institutions. And their verdict was mixed on whether these potentially dramatic developments were heartening or ominous.
Most religion-specific legislative accommodations, such as those discussed above, have focused on exempting religious individuals and organizations from particular laws. But in 1993, Congress departed from this more-focused approach by passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which generally protects people of faith from all laws that unduly burden their religious practices. The impetus for […]
Public Views of Faith-Based Initiatives Since early 2001, when the Bush administration first established a White House office to expand the role of religious organizations in providing social services, there have been clear divisions in public attitudes toward faith-based initiatives. The public has continuously supported the principle of allowing houses of worship, along with other […]
Public Views of Faith-Based Initiatives Since early 2001, when the Bush administration first established a White House office to expand the role of religious organizations in providing social services, there have been clear divisions in public attitudes toward faith-based initiatives. The public has continuously supported the principle of allowing houses of worship, along with other […]
Overview The broad contours of religion in the 2008 election campaign remain largely unchanged from previous election cycles. White evangelical Protestants remain overwhelmingly Republican, and they favor McCain over Obama by roughly the same margins that they favored Bush over his 2000 and 2004 Democratic opponents. But white evangelical Protestants express far less enthusiasm for […]
Overview The broad contours of religion in the 2008 election campaign remain largely unchanged from previous election cycles. White evangelical Protestants remain overwhelmingly Republican, and they favor McCain over Obama by roughly the same margins that they favored Bush over his 2000 and 2004 Democratic opponents. But white evangelical Protestants express far less enthusiasm for […]
Religion played a much more significant role in the media coverage of President-elect Barack Obama than it did in the press treatment of Republican nominee John McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign, but much of the coverage related to false yet persistent rumors that Obama is a Muslim. Meanwhile, there was little attempt by the […]