Dividing people up into common categories with labels, whether ethnic, racial, sexual or otherwise, what group of people would be the most distrusted section of society in America? What group would you absolutely never vote for as a president? What group would you cry with rage should you lovely innocent son/daughter decide to foolishly fall in love with them? What group is a threat to your wholesome all-American values and way of life?

As much as the answer should be "none of them", we all know prejudice is rife throughout the world and America is certainly no exception. So in general, who does the population most find unacceptable? Jews, Black Americans, homosexuals? Maybe that Islam religion the media constantly tells you is about to kill you and your loved ones?

Wrong.

Well, none of those groups made the top of the bad-and-wrong-people list in a paper Edgell et al. produced a paper last year published in the American Sociological Review. Amongst other things, it asked the above questions, looking at data from Gallup, the American Mosiac Project Survey amongst others and conducting their own research.

The results? The least trusted members of US society were actually not any of the aforementioned groups which have at times, and indeed in some cases are at present, been constantly presented to the population as the bogeyman, out to harm you and everything you love, not least your country. Rather, the new spectre-of-evil appears to be the atheist. Whilst the definition of an atheist is in itself slightly controversial, in simple terms we are talking about those who do not believe in God.

According to the American surveys, these people are not to be trusted in public or private life. When asked "If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be [whatever], would you vote for that person?" it was found that less than half of the Americans could indeed bring themselves to vote for an atheist. Whilst the below illustration (taken from p215 of the study, based on data from Gallup) shows that there has been a slight increase in acceptability over recent times it is clearly not anywhere near the levels of other discriminated against minorities.

Even aside from being president, atheists are apparently not even fit for being a family member. Checking the below results from the American Mosiac Project Survey (p218 of the paper) shows that an atheist would be the least acceptable marriage partner for one' offspring.

I would disapprove if my child wanted to marry a member of this group:

They even come last conceptually - This group does not at all agree with my vision of American Society

For us Brits for whom the common sense is that formal organised religion is largely on the decline since days of yore (with the possible exception of the Islamic extremism that the Daily Mail likes to try and make us believe is the true evil lurking behind every corner - well every corner where there is a non-white person to be seen anyway), it might be hard to understand quite how religious America still is - especially for a country who was fervently pioneering in the separation of church and state at one point in the dim and distant past (before the days that the likes of George Bush went around claiming God told them to invade various countries killing hundreds of thousands of civilians). Edgell et al. (p214) remind us that recent surveys have shown that just 3% of Americans do not believe in God. Another survey showed only 1% actually identify as atheist.

The reasons why atheists can't be trusted? Some more qualitative interview research reveals it is probably for moral reasons. In the words of the study authors (p225):

Some people view atheists as problematic because they associate them with illegality, such as drug use and prostitution - that is, with immoral people who threaten respectable community from the lower end of the status hierarchy. Others saw atheists as rampant materialists and cultural elitists that threaten common values from above - the ostentatiously wealthy who make a lifestyle out of consumption of the cultural elites who think they know better than every one else.

The common - and inexplicable - theme being that those who believe in God can only possibly care about themselves and the rest of the world can go to (secular) hell.

Reference: Edgell, Gerteis, and Hartmann. 'Atheists as "Other": Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society' American Sociological Review 2006 Vol. 71 (April 211-234)

Full paper is attached below (unless anyone would like me to remove it - just ask).