People more prejudiced about religion than race, report finds

The Woolf Institute’s two-year study on diversity, How We Get Along, will tomorrow conclude that people are more intolerant of people’s religion than any other identity elements, the Guardian reported. 

The study surveyed 11,700 people in England and Wales and found that people from other faiths are the most prejudiced about Muslims but Muslims are also most likely to have negative attitudes about other religions. 

Researchers used the question of marriage to determine tolerance and prejudice. 

Only 43% of non-black or Asian respondents were okay with their family members marrying a Muslim with about three-quarters saying they had no problem with relatives marrying a black or Asian person. 

The majority of Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Buddhists who were surveyed said they would not want loved ones to marry into a Muslim family with only a minority of surveyed Christians saying the same thing. 

Likewise the majority of Muslims questioned did not want family members marrying a Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Sikh or person with no religion whilst almost four in 10 Muslims were uncomfortable with relatives marrying Christians. 

The study also found that prejudice within minority communities were experiencing generational shifts. 

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