Last year unleashed a wave of hate against religious and racial minorities in the U.S. that dominated the news, especially in the days following Donald Trump’s November victory.
The number of hate crimes in the U.S. was already on its way up before 2016 got underway — with the most significant growth in attacks aimed at Muslim and transgender Americans. After the election, New York City saw a 115 percent spike in the number of hate crimes, with the largest increase targeting Jews, according to New York City police.
Just more than a month into the new year, newly inaugurated President Trump has tried to ban travel to the U.S. from seven majority-Muslim nations, indefinitely halt admissions of Syrian refugees and temporarily halt the entry of all refugees. In addition, Trump has attempted, through his executive order, to give preference to Christian refugees. A federal appeals court has put the order on hold.
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Trump White House issued a statement that neglected to even mention Jews.
It might seem an odd time, then, to throw this factoid into the mix: Overall, Americans feel more warmly toward just about every religious group than they did 2½ years ago, including Muslims.
That’s the finding in a newly released Pew Research Center survey, which asked survey participants to rate religious groups using a “feelings thermometer.” Compared with June 2014, Americans today hold warmer feelings toward Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, Hindus and Mormons. The two groups that get the coldest feelings are Muslims and atheists, but Americans indicated this year that they feel more warmly toward these two groups than they did 2½ years ago.
The Pew survey is at once encouraging and discouraging.
While it would be easy to deduce from news coverage and the political tailwinds that there’s growing antipathy in this country toward Muslim and Jewish Americans, the survey offers a heartening counterpoint. The survey participants viewed Muslims 20 percent more warmly on the feelings thermometer between 2014 and this year. Warm feelings toward Jews jumped by more than 6 percent — and Jews today, according to the survey, are the most warmly received religious group in the U.S.
But the Pew findings point to the discouraging truth that too many Americans regard those of other faiths with suspicion. While more Americans feel warmly toward Muslims, survey participants gave Muslims only a 48-degree rating on the feelings thermometer. The most warmly regarded group, Jews, received a 67-degree rating on the thermometer Pew used.
There’s still plenty of negative sentiment out there that, unfortunately, appears to be intensifying. Just two days before Trump’s inauguration, for example, the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine in Portland was one of at least 20 Jewish organizations across the U.S. that received bomb threats — the second wave of bomb threats that targeted Jewish community centers in January alone. Jewish community centers across the country experienced another wave of bomb threats Monday, and a Jewish cemetery near St. Louis, Missouri, apparently was vandalized.
In the Pew survey, participants who knew someone in another religious group tended to give that religious group warmer ratings. For example, those who knew at least one Muslim rated the entire religious group at 56 degrees, versus a 42-degree rating among those who didn’t know a Muslim.
It’s common sense, and it points to a path forward: When you know someone who’s different, there’s a lot less space for hate. It is also encouraging that young people have more positive feelings toward Muslims and generally more consistently warm feelings toward all religions than older generations.
Community and religious leaders should keep this reality in mind. At a time when hate and suspicion of others propel policy at the federal level, it’s crucial that local communities — faith and otherwise — foster acceptance and understanding.
