ABC News: Religious freedom in America: popular and polarizing

UC Scholar Andrew Lewis weighs in religious freedom in America

In an Associated Press story shared by dozens of media outlets, the University of Cincinnati’s politics and religion expert Andrew Lewis speaks to a new religious freedoms poll conducted by the University of Chicago Divinity School and Tthe Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Lewis, an associate political science professor who focuses on religion, said a “polarization of religious freedom” has developed over the last two decades, with potentially negative consequences.

In the poll, 77% of liberals said Muslims’ freedoms were threatened at least somewhat, compared with 32% of conservatives. Liberals also were roughly three times more likely than conservatives to perceive threats to atheists and Buddhists, and somewhat more likely to perceive threats to Jews, 56% to 41%.

By contrast, by roughly two to one, more conservatives than liberals said evangelical Protestants, Catholics and other Christians face threats to their religious freedom.

>Read coverage by ABC News

The article appears in other outlets, samples linked below:

https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Religious-freedom-in-America-popular-polarizing-15463040.php

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Religious-freedom-in-America-popular-polarizing-15463040.php

https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2020/08/religious-freedom-in-america-popular-and-polarizing/

https://www.registercitizen.com/news/article/Religious-freedom-in-America-popular-and-15460385.php

Featured image of chuchgoer with hymn book. Photo/Unsplash

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