Religion, Free Speech, and Hate Speech

When does saying something negative about a religious group constitute hate speech?

Well, you first have to define hate speech, and this is not as easy as you might think. The basic idea is that hate speech has two parts:

1. It is language that targets an individual or group based on an inherent characteristic (religion, gender, race, etc.).
2. It has some sort of aggression or even potential for harm or violence.

Part 1 seems obvious, but 2 is more difficult to pin down because it is not always clear if and when statements are harmful. Should saying something negative about a religious group constitute hate speech just because it is negative? Can't any sort of negative speech have the potential to promote aggression or violence even unintentionally? Note that there is actually no legal definition of hate speech under U.S. law, however it can be a criminal act to use speech or other expressions to incite criminal activity or threaten violence against a person or group.

This background helps us to contextualize the findings from a recent Pew Research Center survey about religious discrimination in the U.S. Americans report that there has been an increase in discrimination against both Muslims and Jews since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Check out the page, and especially examine the charts. There is a lot there, but you can focus on just the first findings reported which relate to the possibility of hate speech. The connection to hate speech is that there have been accusations of hate speech against supporters of both sides of the war.

Notice that there is not a perfect consensus among Americans about what types of speech should be allowed, but of course a consensus is hard to expect. There are, on the other, opinions that a majority of Americans hold.

First, 73% of American's say that speech that calls for violence against Muslims or against Jews should not be allowed. That is, a large majority of Americans believe that calls for violence should not be protected as free speech.

Second, there is a lower but still majority amount of support (about 60% give or take) for allowing speech that opposes Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state or that opposes a Palestinian state. This type of speech is more difficult to assess for Americans because it is negative and could be viewed as implying support for violence against Israel or Palestinians but does not necessarily have to be interpreted as implying support for violence.

Nonetheless, the survey results reveal that most Americans see a big difference between saying something that could be construed as potentially conflictual in nature (most Americans believe this should be allowed) and saying something that is explicitly violent (even more Americans believe this shouldn't be allowed).

This distinction can also help us understand the reasoning and intent behind religious hate crime laws that are meant to protect religious minorities. As we will discuss later in the quarter, the enactment of these laws can help to protect members of religious minorities from violence and therefore help to maintain or increase the religious diversity within a country.

Religion and Happiness

Empirical results from social-scientific data analysis are always under scrutiny, but there is one pattern that is so well established that it appears to be beyond dispute. That pattern is the strong and robust positive relationship between religion and happiness. A recent article in the Deseret News provides a very accessible summary of some of the findings.

Read this article, and as you read you should ask yourself a variety of questions.

• Why are religious people happier?
• Is there a causal relationship between religion and happiness so that religion actually makes people happier?
• Are all religious people happy? Why or why not?
• If religion does make people happier, then does mean that religion is overall good for society?

A Continuing Trend in Government Restrictions on Religion

Last month, the Pew Research Center released a report on changes in government restrictions on religion around the world. Read the summary here. If you are interested, then you can also check out the full report pdf, but be warned that it is pretty long.

The key finding is that the median level of government restrictions on religion increased slightly from 2020 to 2021. This development is a continuation of a trend that the Pew Research Center has been measuring since 2007 using their Government Restrictions Index (GRI).

In statistics, an index is a composite statistic. That is, it is a single number that summarizes information from several data sources.. Creating an index is no simple thing because it can be conceptually difficult to determine how best to combine different data into a single number, but indices are very important in the social sciences because of their ability to summarize many things at once. And this is true for the GRI. Because government restrictions can take many forms, the GRI provides a single number that summarizes all of those government restrictions in a useful way.

As you read this summary, you should look for information on the GRI, what it measures, and how it measures it. Also look for information about how government restrictions are related to other types of government interventions, such as the government's providing of benefits to religious groups.

Once you've read the summary page, then click on the link that takes you to Chapter 4 to learn about restrictions in the world's 25 most populous countries. Scroll down to see the graphic. Which large countries have the most restrictions? Which large countries have the fewest restrictions? Any surprises?

Recent Articles about Religious Competition

In an article in the Salt Lake Tribune, we read about what happens to empty church buildings no longer being used by congregations.  Some buildings are repurposed, some are razed, and some have various parts salvaged.

An article in The Atlantic describes some of the ways that Catholicism has adapted over the last couple centuries.  While it had "dogmatically opposed modernity" at times, it has also found an active public profile.

Finally, an article at NPR discusses some ways that churches are experimenting with alternative ways to engage with people.  Think gardening!

USCIRF Religious Freedom Designations and the 2022 Annual Report

Last week the USCIRF issued a press statement about its designated Countries of Particular Concern.  The following twelve countries were given this designation:

• Burma
• China
• Cuba
• Eritrea
• Iran
• Nicaragua
• North Korea
• Pakistan
• Russia
• Saudi Arabia
• Tajikistan
• Turkmenistan

Check out the 2022 Annual Report (pdf) for information about religious freedom in these and other countries.  This report was published back in April 2022.

COVID-19 Restrictions on Religion Around the World

The Pew Research Center just published two days ago a report titled "How COVID-19 Restrictions Affected Religious Groups Around the World in 2020."  Read the entire summary page here, and if you want to learn more then check out the full report here (pdf).

Several main findings are reported.  For example, 23% of all countries had some sort of penalties for violation of COVID-19 restrictions on religious gathering, 27% of all countries had religious groups that spoke out against the COVID-19 restrictions, and religious groups in many countries were blamed for helping to spread COVID-19.  In other words, there were both government restrictions and social hostilities towards religious groups during the pandemic.  There were also many cases religious groups working with government officials to slow down the spread of COVID-19.

When the pandemic first started and restrictions on religious practice were being instituted here in the U.S., I wrote several posts that tracked the ongoing developments and debates.  So if you want to learn more about these developments, you can see the posts here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

USCIRF Report on State-favored Religions

Last week the USCIRF (which you will learn about on Homework 7) issued a report on state-favored religions.  Here's the press release, and here is the entire report (pdf).

Some of the key points include:

• 73% of the 78 countries that have an official or favored religion, also have policies or laws that led to repression or discrimination.
• Religious minorities and women are among the mostly likely victims of this repression and discrimination.

The report is only 8 pages, so read the entire report.  Ask yourself the following questions as you read:

• Of the 78 countries with an official or favored religion, in how many is Islam the favored religion?  What about Christianity?  What other religions may be favored?
• In what parts of the world are countries with favored religions located?  Where are the ones that have discriminatory laws and policies?  Where are the ones that do not have discriminatory policies?
• Do you see any patterns?
• What types of repression and discrimination occur?
• What is the connection between having a favored religion and having discriminatory laws and policies?
• Are non-religious persons also victims?  Why or why not?

Which is Better: Conducting the Survey Online or Over the Phone?

A recent article at Religion News Service describes a new study of survey responses for the General Social Survey (GSS).  This study finds that the move from conducting the GSS via phone calls to conducting surveys online has led to a change in the set of people to agree to participate in the survey, and that this can lead to mistakes in how we interpret trends in the data.  In particular, the study finds that highly religious individuals are less likely to participate in the online surveys, and that this skews the survey results so that the surveys overstate the decline in religiosity.

There is a counterargument, however, that is also mentioned in the RNS article, namely, that the phone interviews were already overstating American religiosity so the move to online survey is producing more representative data.

This debate illustrates how, even when two people agree on what the data literally report, they may still disagree on the best way to interpret what the data actually mean.