Religious Identification and Moral Attitudes: The British Case

Abstract

British society is currently embroiled in a variety of controversial social issues. An identifiable set of these disputes concerning artificial insemination, AIDS victims homosexual rights, and pornography are all debated as moral issues. This study examines the impact of religious identification on public attitudes in relation to these moral issues. The results show a marked variation in patterns of religious identification and significant differences in relation to moral attitudes. Religious non-affiliates are more supportive of AIDS victims, less disapproving of homosexuals, and less likely to espouse a more conservative view in relation to either artificial insemination methods or pornography than their religious affiliates. Multivariate analyses, however, suggests that religious identification only affects certain types of moral issues, namely attitudes towards AIDS victims, homosexuals, and pornography. When various other factors are controlled, religious non-affiliates are generally more supportive of AIDS victims, homosexuals, and the public availability of pornography than religious affiliates. Furthermore, with the one exception of pornography, this relationship remained regardless of whether Independent Apostates or Stable Independents are considered. Thus, for these issues at least, it is the lack of religious identification per se, or current religious independence, which constitutes one primary factor in explaining moral attitudes.