Patty Rentschler

MATH-3-003
March 19, 2011

I am examining the relationship between religion and view on homosexuality from the

CBS News Poll 2006 data set. The data was taken from a poll that was issued via telephone by

CBS News and MTV. People aged thirteen to twenty-four were randomly dialed and polled on

varying issues such as global warming, diversity, internet usage, etc. from May to June 2006.

The variables for regard of homosexuality (from a moral standpoint) and religion are both

nominal with more than two categories. Regard of homosexuality was coded as follows:

1=morally wrong, 2=okay, 3=don’t care much, 4=dk/na. For the purposes of the project, I

recoded the variable where 1=morally wrong and 2=okay/don’t care, making it nominal with

only two categories. The variable religion was coded as: 1=Protestant, 2=Catholic, 3=Jewish,

4=other, 5=none, and 9=dk/na. I chose these two variables because I feel very strongly about

human rights and wanted to see whether or not religious belief has a strong influence on one’s

view of homosexuality.

To analyze the relationship between these two variables, I made a clustered bar graph of

the data (see figure 1). In regards to homosexuality being morally wrong, the largest amount of

people who viewed it as being wrong were Protestant. Catholics had the second highest quantity

of people who viewed it as being wrong, followed by other religions, and then those who gave

no religion. People of the Jewish faith had the lowest number of people who viewed it as morally

wrong. Looking at the bar graph again, Protestants also had the highest number of people who

viewed homosexuality as being okay or didn’t care much. People with no religious affiliation

had the second highest quantity of people who viewed it as okay or didn’t care. Following the
people of no religious affiliation are Catholics, then other religious affiliations, and finally

Jewish people – who had the lowest amount of people who viewed it as okay or didn’t care.

Figure 1: Regard of Homosexuality by Religious Affiliation

According to calculations based on the contingency table (see figure 2), 39% of

Protestants view homosexuality as being morally wrong. In addition, 23% of Catholics, 14% of

people of Jewish faith, 37% of people who practice other religions, and 8% of those who

answered none also view homosexuality as being morally wrong. However, 61% of Protestants

viewed homosexuality as being okay or did not care; 77% of Catholics, 86% of Jews, 63% of
 other religions, and 92% of people with no religious affiliation also held the view that

homosexuality was morally okay or did not care much about the question. The results of this data

analysis indicate that religious belief does not necessarily have an impact on one’s view of

homosexuality. This is illustrated by the fact that there were higher percentages in each religious

category in favor of or apathetic to homosexuality, and lower percentages for all religious

categories in regards to viewing homosexuality as morally wrong. One could also consider that

with the exception of the Jewish people, those who answered none, and Catholics, the broad

religious categories cover a myriad of different faiths, and individual Protestant practices or

religions under ‘other’ might have varying views on the question of homosexuality. One must

also consider the age range of the people polled – ages thirteen to twenty-four. Adolescents may

have a more liberal take on such issues, and it would be interesting to see data from older age

groups as well. The data indicates, however, that moral questions are not entirely dependent

upon one’s religion and that other factors have influence on one’s sense of morality.

Figure 2:

Regard Homosexuality * religion Crosstabulation

Count

religion

Protestant
(Please specify
denomination) Catholic Jewish Other (Specify) None Total

Regard Homosexuality Morally wrong 148 38 2 27 12 227

Okay/Don't care much 227 125 12 46 134 544

Total 375 163 14 73 146 771