Religious Freedom Backlash: Evidence from Public Opinion Experiments about Free Expression

Religious-freedom conflicts are prominent throughout US history (Sehat 2011); however, for much of the past century, religious freedom represented a pluralist, egalitarian aspiration. This correspondedwith growing levels of religious tolerance and support for the broad contours of religious liberty (Putnam and Campbell 2010). In recent decades, consensus has turned to division because religious freedom has taken center stage in our partisan culture wars and constitutional disputes (Bennett 2017; Lewis 2017; Wilson and Djupe 2020). Although activists and elites are at the helm of these debates over religious liberty, the mass public also is polarized over prominent religious-freedom issues, especially concerning LGBTQ rights and COVID-19 policies (Castle 2019; Mitchell 2016; Nortey 2022). In describing the polarization of religious liberty, academic and journalistic accounts have argued that support for religious freedom is related to preference from group-based exclusivity, such as Christian nationalism, social dominance, and traditionalism (Castle 2017; Gillman and Chemerinsky 2020; Goidel, Smentkowski, and Freeman 2016; Whitehead and Perry 2020). Although these ideological and psychological factors often are attributed to the mass public’s support for religious freedom, the mechanisms have not been tested directly. This study used an experimental survey design to examine how presenting vignettes that emphasize egalitarianism, religious nationalism, and social dominance affects support for three type of religious freedom. We found that reading messages about equality, nationalism, and social dominance does not increase support for religious freedom; however, it does spark backlash in certain cases, particularly among Independents and the non-religious.