Race, Religion, and Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage

Objective: We examine racial differences in support for same sex marriage, and test whether the emerging black-white gap is a function of religiosity. We explore how religious factors play a crucial role in racial differences, and how secular factors have varying effects on attitudes for whites and African Americans. Methods: Using data from the General Social Surveys, we estimate ordinal logistic regression models and stacked structural equation models. Results: We show that the racial divide is a function of African Americans’ ties to sectarian Protestant religious denominations and high rates of church attendance. We also show racial differences in the influence of education and political values on opposition to same sex marriage. Conclusions: Religious factors are a source of racial differences in support for same sex marriage, and secular influences play less of a role in structuring African Americans’ beliefs about same-sex marriage

Bridging Alone: Religious Conservatism, Marital Homogamy, and Voluntary Association Membership

This study characterizes social insularity of religiously conservative American married couples by examining patterns of voluntary associationmembership. Constructing a dataset of 3938 marital dyads from the second wave of the National Survey of Families and Households, the author investigates whether conservative religious homogamy encourages membership in religious voluntary groups and discourages membership in secular voluntary groups. Results indicate that couples’ shared affiliation with conservative denominations, paired with beliefs in biblical authority and inerrancy, increases the likelihood of religious group membership for husbands and wives and reduces the likelihood of secular group membership for wives, but not for husbands. The social insularity of conservative religious groups appears to be reinforced by homogamy—particularly by wives who share faith with husbands

Adolescent Religiosity and School Contexts

Schools serve as the primary social organizations for adolescents, structuring their lives and conveying a variety of skills, norms, and values, but relatively little is known about how schools influence the development of religious belief, attitudes, and behavior during adolescence. We explore how schools' religious norms, coupled with adolescents' pursuit of social status through conformity, affect public and private religiosity. Copyright (c) 2007 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.