States with more Catholics more favor gay rights

Posted on July 30, 2009
Filed Under Uncategorized

Want to predict which state might move next to legalize same-sex marriage? You might count Catholics. The higher their percentage of the population, the more likely the state is to… support gay rights.

This counter-intuitive finding is brought to you with a tip of two hats — mine to Mark Silk at Spiritual Politics and his to Robbie Jones who led Silk to a new study soon by be published by two Columbia University political scientists.

Jeffrey Lax and Justin Phillips examined public support and resulting political policy on eight issues including marriage, housing, adoption and hate crimes.

The main thrust of the study was to examine whether there is “pro-gay bias in policy making” (the authors conclude no) or a tyranny of local majorities “in which anti-gay majorities trump minority rights” (the authors again say no).

See States with more Catholics more favor gay rights

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