Yes, but not by as much as you think:
Interesting data from George Yancey at Patheos:
… Once again I found that Atheists was the group with the most disaffection – 45.5 percent of the respondents ranked them a standard deviation below the mean. They were followed respectively by Christian fundamentalists (32.2 percent), Muslims (31.2 percent) and Mormons (19.6 percent).
It is clear that quite a few individuals have animosity towards Christian fundamentalists. However, there is little animosity towards the general Christian category. It is useful to consider how the respondents define who is a Christian fundamentalist. If Christian fundamentalists are seen as those who bomb abortion clinics or as members of the Westboro Baptist Church, then not many Christians fall into those categories. This animosity may be targeted at so few Christians that it does not have much of an effect in our intergroup relationships. Although I do not have information on how the respondents in the ANES define fundamentalist Christians, I do not believe that their definition is this narrow. In another research project that I am currently working on, we asked college teachers how they would define a fundamentalist and how they would see a fundamentalist as different from other Protestants. Beyond basic stereotypical descriptions, these individuals tended to label fundamentalists as those who believed the Bible to be the literal word of God. According to the 2012 ANES, about a third of Americans have such a belief. If the respondents in the ANES use a similar definition of fundamentalism then the animosity exhibited by them is not directed at an extreme Christian fringe but against a substantial portion of the population.
What is as important as the extent of this animosity is who tends to possess this animosity. Those who listed Christian fundamentalists a standard deviation below the mean of the other groups are 79.4 percent white, 47.6 percent with a bachelor degree, 64.5 percent make at least $50,000 a year and 29.2 percent make at least $100,000 a year. All of these numbers are significantly higher than the percentages in the population without this animosity. Thus, those with anti-Christian hostility are whiter, better educated and wealthier than others in our society. These are majority group qualities indicating that those with anti-Christian animosity have more per-capita social power than the average person. More.
Thoughts?
Note: One confounding factor might be a sort of religious version of the “Bradley effect”: Despite the poll predictions, voters ended up voting against Tom Bradley, an African American running for governor of California in 1982. It is suggested that they may not have wanted to seem racist by telling pollsters that they wouldn’t vote for Bradley. But in the end they voted their union or their business or Aunt Madge’s garden club’s opinion (as they had always done before). In the same way, people might be more willing to admit that they dislike atheists or fundamentalists than that they dislike groups that are little known or at any rate not routinely lampooned, or perhaps seen as victims. Just a thought.
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