New Findings from the "Gallup Religious Tolerance Index"

May 1, 2003

Source: Sightings

On May 1, 2003 Sightings reported that "the Religion and Values department at Gallup recently initiated a new index called the 'Gallup Religious Tolerance Index,' which will now be part of Gallup's regular polling. To publicize this new initiative, Gallup organized an online seminar led by Al Winseman who described the format of the new index and some preliminary findings... Winseman and his team use five questions to categorize individuals into three 'levels' of religious tolerance: Isolated, Tolerant, and Integrated. The figures show America today as 17 percent Isolated, 46 percent Tolerant, and 37 percent Integrated... Whites are far more often Tolerant (48 to 38 percent) and far less often Integrated (35 to 45 percent) than non-whites, while whites and non-whites have an equal number of Isolated individuals (17 percent). Females are in general far more tolerant than males, with only 13 percent Isolated as compared with 22 percent of males, and 43 percent Integrated as opposed to only 33 percent of males... The more education a person has, the more likely he is to be Tolerant, rather than Isolated: this we would have hoped for and expected. But increased education levels are also correlated with decreased levels of Integration -- suggesting that education teaches one to be tolerant, but does not teach one to be outgoing."