People in the U.S. say protecting the rights of Christians is more important than protecting the rights of Muslims, according to a new survey.
A clear majority said it was extremely or very important for the United States to preserve religious freedom in general. But when it came to the rights of specific faiths, results diverged in a new AP/NORC poll released Wednesday.
Eighty-two percent said it was important to protect the religious liberties of Christians, compared to 61 percent who said the same for Muslims. Roughly 70 percent said the same of Jews, while 67 percent said it was important to protect the religious rights of Mormons.
The results were similar across party lines.
Eighty-eight percent of Republicans said it was important to protect the rights of Christians, while only 60 percent said the same of Muslims. Among Democrats, 83 percent said preserving the religious liberties of Christians was the most important, compared to 67 percent who said so for Muslims.
“Religious freedom is now in the eye of the beholder,” Charles Haynes, director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute, told the Associated Press. “People in different traditions, with different ideological commitments, define religious liberty differently.”
The poll of roughly 1,000 U.S. adults was conducted Dec. 10-13, days after the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
