44% of Americans Say Islam Promotes Violence
More and more Americans perceive Islam as a religion that encourages violence, according to a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
According to the survey, 44% of Americans feel Islam promotes violence among its followers -- up by 19 percentage points from March of last year.
These are “new concerns about Islam,” Andrew Kohut, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center, said Thursday. “Attitudes toward Islam are changing in light of world events and what people perceive to be problems in the world.”
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, said ongoing messages of what he called “Islamaphobic bigotry” sent by high-profile right-wing and evangelical leaders have ignited the change.
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