Poll finds support for religious rights for Christians, but what about Muslims?

Americans place a higher priority on preserving the religious freedom of Christians than for other faith groups, ranking Muslims as the least deserving of the protections, according to a new survey.

Solid majorities said it was extremely or very important for the U.S. to uphold religious freedom in general. However, the percentages varied dramatically when respondents were asked about specific faith traditions, according to a poll by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Eighty-two percent said religious liberty protections were important for Christians, compared with 61% who said the same for Muslims. About seven in 10 said preserving Jews’ religious freedom was important, while 67% said so of Mormons. People who identified with no religion were ranked about even with Muslims in needing support to live out their beliefs.

Charles Haynes, director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute, said the findings reflect deep divisions among Americans about the very definition of religious liberty, which has taken on newly politicized meanings in a time of debate over gay marriage and the threat from Islamic extremists.

“Religious freedom is now in the eye of the beholder,” Haynes said. “People in different traditions, with different ideological commitments, define religious freedom differently.”

The poll was conducted Dec. 10 through Dec. 13, after Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino and during intensifying anti-Muslim rhetoric by Donald Trump and other candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. The furor has led to a spike in vandalism of mosques and harassment of U.S. Muslims over the last month.

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In the survey, 88% of Republicans said it was important to protect the religious liberty of Christians, but only 60% said so for Muslims. Democrats also ranked religious freedom for Muslims as a lower priority. Eighty-three percent of Democrats said the protections were important for Christians; 67% said so for Muslims.

A Pew Research Center survey last year found an increasing share of Americans believe Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its followers. Several outspoken critics have emerged who argue that Islam itself is a threat to the U.S.

“These numbers seem to be part of a growing climate of anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States,” said Madihha Ahussain, an attorney for Muslim Advocates, a California-based civil rights group. “This climate of hatred has contributed to dozens of incidents of anti-Muslim violence in recent weeks.”

Helen Decker, 65, a West Texas Christian who reads the Bible regularly, believes strongly that religious freedom should be provided to people of all faiths or no faith, including for her grandson who she said is an atheist. But she said Muslims can only earn the same religious liberty protections “under certain circumstances — that they can show that they are not a radical Muslim.”

“Muslims — they need to be protected just like Christians, unless they pose harm to human life,” Decker said.

But John Ashford of Chicago, who is retired from the U.S. military and the Postal Service, said “it’s not right” to deny religious liberty protections to Muslims. He said officials have been showing too much deference to Christians for political reasons, in what he considers a threat to the separation of church and state.

“There’s supposed to be equal protection under the law — that’s what the Constitution says,” he said. “If you’re not doing that, you’re doing something wrong.”

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