Move over jews, queers, arabs and mexicans! Finally, this middle-class white boy moves to the top of the list! Atheists Identified as America’s Most Distrusted Minority
MINNEAPOLIS (3/20/2006) -- Americans' increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology.
Researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.
Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public.
“Atheists, 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance,” says Penny Edgell, the study’s lead researcher. “Our findings seem to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good.”
The researchers also found acceptance or rejection of atheists is related not only to personal religiosity, but also to one’s exposure to diversity, education and political orientation—with more educated, East and West Coast Americans more accepting of atheists than their Midwestern counterparts.
Well, pin a yellow star / pink triangle / green clover / purple diamond on my lapel and herd me into the camps. Finally, I am persecuted. Hated by my own countrymen!
Home? I have no home. Hunted... Despised... Living like an animal -- The jungle is my home! But I will show the world that I can be its master! I shall perfect my own race of people -- a race of atomic supermen that will conquer the world!