Thursday, July 21, 2011

Atheists and liberalism

I was curious if atheists might have moved right politically in the past decade. Here are the percentages of atheists who voted for the Democratic presidential candidate minus the percent of the general population who did (GSS data):

Eighties +16.8 (n = 56)
Nineties +20.7 (n = 121)
Last decade +12.3 (n = 191)

Atheists are still more liberal than the overall population, but perhaps a little less so nowadays. On the other hand, I suspect they have gotten more liberal on social issues. Here is the percent who think a women should be able to get an abortion for any reason minus the percent for the total population:

Nineties +34.1 (n = 96)
Last decade +36.0 (n = 103)
This decade +44.7 (n = 41)

Atheists are more socially liberal than generally liberal, and this appears to be on the increase. They have reached the Jewish level of lifestyle liberalism.

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