tanf. in a little bit about people with barriers and it will take time and target resources to identify the most cost effective approaches. as people have noted we have minimal data available to assess what what canada's accomplishing how that is changed over time. is chairman davis noted only 24% of tanf recipients are meeting their tanf work or dissipation rates and while that number may seem low it really tells us very little about whether tanf is succeeding or failing. of

religion in u.s. politics. this is about two hours. [inaudible conversations] >> i want to welcome everyone here today. i me j. dionne a senior fellow

here at brookings. it is very good if you to come out and be with us and this is a very exciting survey. we have said a lot after 9/11 that we had a new normal that this had changed us in extraordinary ways and it is always in the survey that you are about to hear, more about, talks about americans attitudes 10 years later. we feel more safe marginally but we feel we have less personal freedom and less respect in the world but in many ways are halves we didn't change and indeed some of the divisions among us before 9/11 have only been aggravated. one of the things we will talk about a great deal are partisan and ideological splits that have spread from issues such as taxing and spending to issues such as what the meaning of religious tolerance is and where we stand on immigration and how

we adapt to new groups. we will be talking a lot about generational divisions in the country. we will be talking quite a bit about immigration. i can't resist sharing g.k. chesterton's's observation that the united states has sought and i quote literally out of a nailed nation that comes to love, and we have always struggled over this. we have always and in there and manage to bend towards inclusion. there is a hunch that my colleague bill gholston on the survey we will again but we have also struggled over this question and there will be a lot about this struggle as we have this conversation. this survey and the report are part of an ongoing collaboration between the public religion research institute and the project on project on religion policy and politics here in the government study at are things. the survey was carried out by pri and bill galston and all of

us are grateful to the great colleagues for collaboration that goes back to a survey we did that might interest some of you on the relationship between christian conservatives and the tea party. all this is available at both of our web sites. i also want to say that we are going to -- i want to welcome the c-span audience and i want to know that you can participate in this discussion by tweeting your question. it it is hashtag diversity poll, all one word. i got that right christine, did i not? it is hashtag diversity poll and christine will be passing along your question so not only will the people here participate but we hope all of you who are listening will participate. thank you and so many people worked on this. i just want to say right up front that we at brookings want to thank y. davis, christie

jacobs and emily luken at pri shannon craig, emelia thompson, sammy hultquist and we also want to thank you for some of the lovely charge we see in this report. here is how we will proceed. robbie jones will give one of his patented copyrighted really and powerpoint presentations which will give you a very good sense of what this survey actually found. that will be followed by bill galston and is reported as you see will come into parts. bill will present the part that he and i worked on and then i will separately introduce our respondents. we are truly blessed and i may use that in the context that bears on religion that we will be joined by dr. muqtedar khan and jose casanova. i can't think of anyone better to respond to a survey of this sort of ireland traduced them later on in the program. right now i will introduce robbie and build and probably

will take it away. robbie is the ceo and founder of the public religion research institute. he writes at figuring faith, a featured "washington post" on faith blog and is one of six members of the national steering committee for the religion and politics section of the american academy of religion. he holds a ph.d. in religion from emory university and in a m.a. from southwestern baptist theological seminary so he is fully qualified across the board to offer the observation he is about to. my friend and colleague bill galston holds the ezra k. zilkha chair in brookings government studies programs were he serves as a senior fellow. he is also college professor at the university of maryland. prior to joining brookings he was professor at the school of public policy at the university of maryland and director of the institute for philosophy and public policy. you can tell by the title of that institute that will knows everything there is to know

about philosophy and everything there is to know about politics. he probably knows a fair amount about baseball too. we are very honored to have this collaboration with you robbie and it is great you are joining us here at workings again. >> thank you. >> i am delighted to be here to talk about the findings from the pluralism immigration survey conducted by public religion research institute our organization and that forms the foundation for a joint report the brookings institution. what it means to be american attitudes on an increasingly diverse america 10 years after 9/11. so if cj said with some folks joining us, the c-span audience and on twitter. the report that the full topline questionnaire the full report can all be found on research web site at www.public religion.or. you will see it right there in

homepage and you can click on it and download the information right there and i will repeat -- we have the hashtag diversity pole all one word following along on twitter. e.j. has said some things i want to add a couple more before jumping in. first i want to thank brookings institution and particularly e.j. and bill for the ongoing partnership that has been so fruitful and really so much fun to work on together. as e.j. mention some of the findings we have flushed out in the survey we first uncovered almost a year ago now with the american value survey which was something we talked about here at things and we identified really these issues of attitudes towards islam and immigration as emerging issues that will be coming more to the floor and public policy. here we are making good sort of on some of the promises that were made back then to sort of flesh this out and see what is going on underneath the hood. i want to say also a thanks to the ford foundation was made our ongoing partnership with the brookings institution possible

and also a a shout shout out to dan cox who was the principle researcher on this report. a couple of words about the survey itself. the survey is just out of the -- so august 14 that was the last day of the. macsata was in the field august 1 to august 14. the result i'm presenting here today were based on telephone interviews with 2450 americans age 18 years or older and including 800 respondents raised by cell phones of a margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 2.5 to 90% interval. so, the presentation i am going to make today has three basic parts. the first part that talks about where we are looking back 10 years after 9/11, how do americans perceive our safety, reputation in the world and issues of security, tolerance and pluralism and the second part i will delve into views of

islam and the use of american muslims. the third part will deal with immigrants and immigration reforms of the big parts. the key word i think you will hear over and over are variations on a theme of wrestling. americans are wrestling with fear but on the other hand they are wrestling with the acceptance as e.j. alluded to. you will see the tension between these two things going on across a number of the findings. so americans continue then to wrestle with issues of purity in an tolerance and pluralism the issues of what it lies to the heart of what it means to be americans. americans affirm first amendment principles but as you will see they don't always are we don't always apply these principles evenly or consistently particularly with regard to american muslims and current immigrants. the powerful forces of political party affiliation, political ideology, generational differences and television news media are fueling large divides

in the country. so let's start with the first section, 10 years after 9/11, where are we? we found some majority of americans, 53% say we are safer today than we were 10 years ago. there is a modest generational gender and education differences on the question that the majority of them at that 10 republicans say we are safer today than we were 10 years ago. now compare that to the other two questions we had 10 years ago and turning 10 years ago. the first one here is do we have more or less personal freedom? overwhelmingly eight of 10 americans say we have less freedom than we did 10 years ago. a very similar pattern on the question of respect in the world. seven of 10 americans say that we have less respect in the world then we did 10 years ago before 9/11. one other broad thing before i go into specific question about

islam and immigration and muslims and immigration business broad support we find for tolerance, for principles of the first amendment religious liberty and separation of church and state. we have near consensus on the question of religious books we had this year the infamous event of the koran earning, the threat of a koran burning. almost nearly all americans believe religious book shelby treated with respect work on questions of the first amendment separation of church and state again strong agreement nine of 10 americans including two-thirds even when they had this fairly strongly must maintain a strict separation of church and state two-thirds of americans agreeing with that statement. so again, broad support for the principle. again we will see inconsistencies and application of what it means across the number of what it requires of

us. so we will start off with some attitudes and what we see about attitudes towards muslims in society, some some clear ambivalence. we have a series of questions asked about comfort levels with different activities by american muslims. the majority supports -- the majority saying they would be a least somewhat comfortable of doing a variety of activities but as you can see there is also a fair number of americans saying they would have at least somewhat uncomfortable with the number of these activities so going from right to left, the muslim teaching in elementary schools have the highest level of support, six in 10 saying they would be a least somewhat comfortable with that foreign 10 saying that they would be somewhat uncomfortable. the rest of the measures, and men praying in the airport and a mosque being built which there has been a lot of news around this last year in oslo him woman wearing of. , those are much more closely divided and we will see this play out a bug -- across a

number of issues. here's a big picture question about whether muslims are an important part of the community and thinking about acceptance. the majority of americans say muslims are an important part of the religious community in the u.s.. however, one in 10 disagree so still a sizable minority disagreeing although a majority agreeing. another kind of question that has been in the news about agreeing or disagreeing american muslims ultimately want to establish sharia applies the loveland of the u.s.. six of 10 americans reject this proposition that the muslims want to establish sharia law so by a margin of two-to-one americans disagree with the statement. however again, three in 10 a sizable minority agree with the statement. as we will see later there is also some very strong partisan ideological divide on this question. one of the things to note here

is that in 2011 has been an enormously active year on this question. a year ago it was sort of the islamic center in manhattan. this year it has really been the sharia law. 49 bills have been introduced in 22 states to ban sharia law and what we see as there has been an effect when we asked the same question in february, only 23% of americans agree that muslims wanted to establish sharia law as the law of the land. that number has gone up to 30% so still a minority but the minority has grown just over the past year. probably not largely or somewhat in response to the activity on the legislative front in so many states across the country. so now i want to talk a little about division before moving on to immigration. there is a lot of information here but the most important thing to see on the slightest of pattern of responses. these are bipartisanship come the number of questions across the bottom are american muslims

want to establish sharia law in the country and muslims are not on the disagree site an important part of the u.s. religious community and another question that we had about whether islam was at odds with american values and way of life. if you look at this you can see really large divides. the blue are self-identified democrats, and a the tan color our independence and the lighter red color by republican and the darker red color are self-identified americans who identify with the tea party. so you can see these really large divisions among the country on really all of these questions. the other thing to note here, some of the things to point out is one that the divides are bigger and particularly on the negative side is bigger on questions about islam than it is on questions about american muslims so this question on the right here is about whether islam itself, the values of islam are american values and way of life. two-thirds of those and tea

party and 63% of those who are republican agree with that statement and only four in 10 democrats agreed that they meant. this question divides most of the american committee. we find the negative slide -- side a good bit lower although the partisan divides are still here. one other thing to point out here is that the divisor little bit asymmetrical. that is that republicans are sort of more further away from the population then democrats are in this question so democrats averaged eight points from the general population at a more positive direction across all these questions and republicans averaged 14 points in the general population and were negative direction on these questions. we see the same pattern on the other partisanship, a similar pattern on views of islam in american muslims. again the same questions across the bottom but by most trusted media source and i want to be really clear here, with this question is based on is we asked americans who they most trusted

to give them accurate news and information about current events and politics, which television news outlet so among americans in this chart is showing among americans who chose different television news outlets to be the most trusted one, how their views than shakeout on these various questions. the main thing that you see as there is excellent not a lot of difference by most trusted media source except for those in the most trust "fox news." that is the red bar that really jumps out. on all these questions americans who trust "fox news" are significantly more -- and the other news source to say muslims want to establish sharia law law and american firms are not an important part of the u.s. religious community and to say the values of islam are at odds with american values so a pretty stark difference here. finally before we move on to immigration, one other question -- we tried to get a sense of how americans evaluate religious violence reticular leah in light of the tragedy in

norway. try to think about how do americans react when the perpetrator is doing something in the name of christianity versus when a perpetrator is doing something in the name of his long. what we found here is a double standard and i mean that in the most descriptive light, that there is literally a different standard applied when the perpetrator is a self-identified christian versus a self-identified muslim. the way it sheikhs out eight in 10 americans say that when a person commits violence in the name of christianity they are not really truly christians 08 and 10 reject that claim to be christian. americans do not apply that same principle to the perpetrator who does something in the name of islam. less than half of americans say the 48% as -- say when someone commits violence in the name of islam that they are really muslims are pretty stark difference in how americans value religious freedoms and

religious violence. this hopefully make some sense about how the government went in the wake of the tragedy in norway. so views on immigration and immigrants and we will see some of the same patterns really showing up here. similar to the slide i had earlier we had a set of russians about general american attitudes about what they think about immigrants. very strong numbers of americans, nearly nine in 10 saying immigrants are hard-working. eight in 10 saying immigrants have strong family values. on the other hand there is some kind of reservations saying these could be interpreted negatively. seven in 10 say immigrants mostly keep to themselves in a majority actually saying immigrants do not nick an effort to english here. again we will see there are some strong partisan divides particularly on the question of learning english in the country with republicans more likely to disagree that they make an effort to learn english and democrats more likely to in win the same thing for ideology.

i am -- not surprise me. number -- and other general question that specifically backs that up, what do americans think about overall impact of immigrants on society? a majority, 53% say the newcomers to american society strength in american society however you should be able cc it pattern here, four in 10 say that newcomers actually threatened traditional american customs and values. again, partisan divides her. six in 10 democrats say americans strengthen -- newcomers strengthen american society and 55% of republicans say that the newcomers threaten american society so the majority is on the opposite side for this question on partisans. this translates really into some real tensions when it comes to policy questions of how to handle particularly the problem of illegal immigrants and what approaches should be taken on

the one hand. if you ask and agree disagree question about the path to citizenship and majority of americans 56% say that the best way to handle the problem of illegal immigrants in the country to allow them to have a pass for citizenship legal resident status with eventual -- at the same time 51% say to make a serious effort to deport all illegal immigrants. we have a little bit of inconsistency here in the way that americans think about -- for both of things are true. by the way just as we saw an increase in the numbers on sharia law over the past year we pulled them with the same question about the support for deportation in march of 2010 and it was far below majority support. it was in the 40s. i don't have a number right in front of me. low 40s and out the numbers have climbed to the other side.

however when they put these things head-to-head we see different pictures so these are kind of asking them individually and when we put them head-to-head with the presumption that the border would be secured on both sides of the question and we sort of asked respondents to choose head-to-head on a question, which do you think is the best way a secure the borders and provide a path to citizenship or secure the borders and arrest and deport all illegal immigrants, the secure the borders and provide citizenship strongly outweighs the other side. so when you put them head to head and ask people to choose with the presumption that the border should be secure six in 10 americans say provide a path to citizenship rather than deport all illegal immigrants. as you can see there is a lot of room to play in these questions. setting up a similar pattern looking at artisan ship and media consumption patterns across a number of questions here. again we see very similar patterns in partisanship and also media. this was on partnership.

across the bottom and have a question about the d.r.e.a.m. act allowing illegal immigrants brought to the uss children to gain legal resident status if they join the military. to college. six in 10 americans overall support that and a strong partisan divide including republicans in the tea party affiliates and the darker red. the second is a path to citizenship allowing undocumented immigrants who've been in the u.s. for several years to earn legal -- and finally disagreed with deportations and the disagree cited deportation so they don't go in the same traction. we should make a serious effort to deport illegal immigrants back to their home country. again we see democrats at least six in 10 favoring the path to citizenship than disagreeing with deportation on the republican side. four in 10 agreeing and only three and in 10 disagreeing with deportation and those who are affiliated with the tea party

lower than those. the same pattern you see a really strong kind of partisan divide on these questions. again we look at media consumption patterns here and we see a very similar pattern as well with here. those that say they most trust "fox news" in the red and those that say they most trust public television in the darker blue and we generally try to arrange them in order and on all these questions we see a very similar shakeout with those who say they most trust "fox news" are less likely than general public to favor the d.r.e.a.m. act or disagree with deportation. the one thing that is different here is those who say they most trust public television viewer standout more on this question than they did on attitudes towards muslims so we see seven in 10 of americans who say they most trust public television standing out on this question and favoring all these things and disagreeing with deportation.

>> finally i want to lay out something on religion and say something about the d.r.e.a.m. act as opposed to a more comprehensive reform. this is also in the report. opposition for the d.r.e.a.m. act that is allowing younger immigrants in the country illegally to sort of gain legal resident status if they join the military. to college actually has less intense offered -- opposition and broader support than the more comprehensive question about immigration reform. wanted to put out some religious differences here. what we see here is all religious groups in the country with the exception of white evangelical protestants support the d.r.e.a.m. act. white in the evangelical partisan stand out as being small majority and opposition to the d.r.e.a.m. act. one slide for the road of head and then i will turn it over to bill. what happens when they look at the millennial generation? what do they seem to suggest

about how that generation may push some of these complex? i'm going to look at one question on islam and the big broad picture on islam and one on immigration. on the question about whether islam is at odds with american values if we look at the contrast being tween lineal said seniors would basically see there on opposite sides of the question so with millennials those are americans 18 to 29 years of age. those are people that are as young as 810 years ago during 9/11 and aged eight to 1910 years ago so came of age at that moment in that era, so they are a majority in support of, or a majority disagreeing with the statement that islam is at odds with american values. more seniors agree with the statement and a big picture question on immigration again the differences are even starker here that two-thirds of millennials nearly say that newcomers to the u.s. strength

in american society while a slim majority of seniors say that immigrants threaten american society and traditional values there. so one thing to say as we go back to the big picture question, it really is america wrestling between fears and acceptance. we see this on the front of immigration and we see this on the front of the place of american muslims in society and attitudes around islam and we also see i think some indication here that the millennial generation may have a little bit of a different take than older americans and may influence where we go from here. now i will turn it over to bill. [applause]

>> well, as has been the case with previous instances of this very fruitful collaboration, e.j. dionne and i were inspired by the survey and its findings that we decided to commit a few acts of interpretation and so we have five brief mini-essays on specific topics to contribute to the mix. e.j. began his remarks by quoting chesterton. i guess i can too. and that is chesterton also famously described america as a nation of the church and then that raises the question, which church? and the answer is that the

unifying religion of america is americans. so the question is, how do you get to be a member in good standing with the american church and who decides and the boundaries of the american church. that essentially is the question that this wonderful survey probes. and, let me make five points in 10 minutes. the first , the united states is committed at its core to the idea of free exercise of religion and respect for diverse faith, but that commitment historically has been tested by successive waves of new religions, it either home-grown or coming to the united states through immigration that it tested the boundaries of a

doctrine that was originally developed within protestantism. in the 19th 19th century conspicuously mormons and catholics and today muslims. our argument is that public attitudes towards muslims today to the extent that they encapsulate reservations about muslims, combine combined some of the features of 19th century attitudes towards mormons and 19th century attitudes towards catholics on the opposition. mormonism was less theological than it was practice-based. there were specific mormon practices, particularly polygamy, which the first, the very first platform of the republican party and the 1850s described as one of the twin relics of barbarism, slavery being the other. in the case of catholics, it was more theological and doctrinal. first, the belief that was not

without foundation that the catholic church in the 19th century was officially opposed to liberalism and democracy and secondly the belief that it demanded loyalty to an authority other than the supreme authority of the constitution of the united states, and mormons and catholics had to adjust, as did the united states in order to bring them within the framework of free exercise, and we would argue on the basis of the survey that attitudes towards muslims today combined reservations about specific actresses, for you know, for example the wearing of the burqa, which invokes a great deal of discomfort as robbie says and is just indicated, along with broader fears about the incompatibilities between the values of islam and the values

of the united states. on the other hand, you know, there is evidence of building inclusion. you have majorities believing that muslims are an important part of the religious community and even larger majority saying that too many americans regard all muslims as terrorists and as we have just seen, the proposition muslims want to institute sharia law is rejected two-to-one by the american people. so rustling, america is wrestling with islam and islamic america. this is part of an often heated historical pattern. the second i can be much briefer. that is that the sorts of tensions that this report is focused on having to do with islam and also immigration are not just freestanding issues. they have been integrated into

the framework of growing political partisan polarization in the united states that is developed really over the past four decades. so you know as robbie has put it, the issues of islam and immigration have now become part of a broader fabric of america's culture wars. with regard, and this is my third point, to immigration, there is a very interesting tension revealed in this survey between, on the one hand, a diffuse majority in favor of fairly capacious and comprehensive immigration reform but on the other hand and intense minority that opposes it. there is more intent -- there is more intensity on -- against the

views on the favorable side and american politics, political institutions have a way of giving disproportionate influence to intensity, and that has to do not only with party primaries but the fact that if intensity tends to show up among those parts of the population that are disproportionately likely to participate in the political process, then you have what we in fact see on the issue of immigration and that is this tension between the aggregate numbers on the one hand and the actual rhythm and feel of the political competition on the issue. .4, which is really intriguing. what we call the mormon factor. while it is the case that mormons are still less widely accepted than the jewish and

catholics it is nonetheless the case that two-thirds of americans, 67% to be precise, approve of mormons. it is also the case that the hostility to mormons is equally prevalent among liberals and conservatives for very different reasons. approval rates for mormons, nine points higher among republicans than democrats and what they called the white evangelical -- the conventional wisdom not entirely about foundation in the 2008 presidential campaign was that evangelicals were they part of the opposition to mormonism and it turns out the survey reveals that only 34% of white evangelicals regard torments as christians. however, 66% of white evangelicals approve of mormons. what that suggests is that there

are features of mormonism other than theology probably having to do with family values and a very traditional lifestyle that these cultural features of mormonism trump theological reservations even in the minds of white evangelicals who are about as likely to approve of mormons as the population as a whole. fifth and finally, age and education. you know, as robbie's charts clearly indicated there does tend to be a very strong age and education effect influencing attitudes towards islam, immigration and a number of other cultural religious issues as well. said the survey indicates all of the expected correlations with regard to african-americans,

hispanics, muslims and immigrants patterns of social relations and the importance of religion itself. but, and this will be my concluding point, there were some surprises. we did not -- we expected to find a much bigger divide between the youngest and the oldest americans on the issue of whether reverse discrimination, discrimination against whites has become as important an issue at as discrimination against minorities. we expected to find a significant gap on the question of whether discrimination against minorities remains an important issue in american politics and society today and also on the question, the very dramatic question of whether muslims who commit acts of violence are indeed muslims and the survey did not reveal the kind of age effect that one

might have expected. and so there are real discontinuities by age and education but also some important continuities. with that i will subside. [applause] >> thank you very much pill. if i could just reiterate to our audience that if you want to ask a question it is hashtag diversity poll. i think we might christine begin with one of our questions from outside the room when we get to the q&a. i'm grateful to robbie for mentioning the ford foundation is supporting both of us and i particularly want to think of sheila who has been a real friend to us. she has a passion for these issues and also a deep and broad knowledge of these issues so that is a really good combination we are very grateful to her. i also want to welcome my friend melissa rogers who is a nonresident senior fellow and a partner with bill and me on many

of our religious and public life projects. if we had pulled other students of religion, religious pluralism and religious freedom and asked who should we invite -- somebody will help me on that -- to be the respondents on the survey they would have come up with dr. dr. muqtedar khan and dr. keeter without any of those demographic breaks. dr. muqtedar muqtedar khan is ar in the department of political science and international relations at the university of delaware. he is the founder of the islamic studies program at the university of delaware and was its first director from 2007 to 2010. his most recent book is debating moderate islam, the geopolitics of islam and the west. he will be our first respondents. dr. jose casanova is one of the world's top scholars in the sociology of religion. that is not a nice thing to say

an introduction. that is actually true. he is a professor at the department of sociology at georgetown university. he has the berkeley centers program on globalization, religion and the secular. he has published works in a broad range of subjects including religion and globalization. migration and religious pluralism transnational religions and sociological theory. so i welcome first stop your khan and dr. casanova. and thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you e.j. and thank you robert for inviting me to this exciting discussion. i'm delighted to be back at brookings. i used to be a fellow here for a long time. there are several such surveys that are coming out about muslims and muslim attitudes about america and about american attitudes towards muslims. for me, who is consuming all of

these surveys it is an emotional rollercoaster. i looked at a recent survey by gallup, which says that 80% of american muslims approve of obama. maybe they are not reading the news. 66% of the american muslims say they are thriving and happy to be here and they are doing better than anybody else. in terms of religious tolerance towards others, the american muslims, more of them than anybody else, one point about the mormons in the u.s.. that may be very happy and that i looked at the survey and i am really very depressed. , let me tell you the good news or get the good news is that regardless of the nature of the favorability that is reported, it has become obvious that attitude towards islam and attitudes towards muslims has become a constitutive element of

american identity. you cannot be an american without having a position on islam and towards muslims. and the kind of position you take about islam and towards muslims will also define the kind of american you are. in that sense, islam is here and has become a part of a americas social, cultural and political identity and its fabric. so that is the most interesting thing that i find. attitudes and change. sometimes data looks different if the question is framed differently. that is the first thing. the second thing that i found was that muslim bindings to me were not surprising. they were concerning, some of the suspicions we have in the trends that we have observed based on several episodes. now we have the numbers that confirms the fears or hopes, depending on how you look at

this. the number 47%, 47% of americans disapprove of islam and muslims particularly the disapproval of islam has been quite stable actually since 2002. the first time i saw that was in a pew study survey in 2002 and confirmed again and again and again. so that is constant. but what has changed is why the disapproval. that is to me the most dangerous and the most frightening thing. when you ask people in the past why did you disapprove of muslims or islam, the 47% who did disapprove talked about terrorism. now they talk about sharia. that is dangerous because terrorism is -- of politics changes. if bin laden is killed, if al qaeda is destroyed. that force of disapproval, that

source of insecurity, which prompts unfavorable attitudes towards muslims can disappear. but if the source port is favorable attitude towards muslims is muslim adherence to sharia then this is never, ever going to disappear. i just spent a whole month, every living moment of that month, trying to apply sharia in my life. the whole point of ramadan is too fast and pray and to think of god and to internalize and internalize the sharia and muslims do that every year they will do that. so living by the sharia is an important aspect of muslim life and if they are going to be disapproved because of that than we are going to have a perennial problem. i think that is something we need to do, unless we do a better job of educating americans about what the sharia is. in my opinion, 90% of the sharia is already applied and the

united states. thou shall not kill, thou shall not cheatsheet, thou show not lie. i wonder if those opposed to sharia if they would find out that murder is prohibited by the sharia, will they approve? killing, robbing, creating krupp shin and society. all of these things are prohibited by the sharia. i have one more comment about the sharia. it is amazing these attitudes towards the sharia. especially by those who are more religious christians and those who are on the side of the republicans. for several decades, many hundred million americans have struggled hard to implement two elements of the christian sharia, banning abortion and preventing marriage. so how do they expect less than

2% of muslims, less than 2% of the american population, how do they expect less than 2% of the population to implement the entire islamic sharia in america? muslims has failed to implement the entire islamic sharia in countries where they have struggled with 100% muslims, 95% muslim, iran 95%. they haven't been successful in implementing. the point is really that sharia is just a prop, and attempts to say we don't like islam and muslims i don't know and i don't care. but if you want to have an excuse here is one. let's try sharia. i think that is what it is. i have one non-islam related -- about this report which i find perplexing and interesting. the favorability numbers towards

african-americans are 89%. nearly everybody, 90% is a huge number. so why is race an issue in this country? why do people feel that they institutionalize discrimination in this country? what it tells me is there is no connection between favorability and institutionalized discrimination. so it is quite possible that you could have just favorability numbers very high towards muslims in the u.s. without having institutionalized discrimination against muslims and that is why you find of muslims in america are much much happier than this data actually suggest. that is why two out of three american muslims say they are thriving even though there are nearly half of americans that say they don't like them. there is no connection between surveys the major favorability and institutionalization of

discrimination etc.. the second thing i found interesting is that mormons enjoy higher favorability ratings than muslims while -- don't. i'm assuming that the majority of mormons in a large number of atheists are white, so how does religion raise the dynamics play out in this connection. i don't understand and perhaps future study somebody could try to flush that out. they are disliked compared to muslims even though mormons are white. there is an interesting finding in this report, which is the marriage between knowledge and prejudice. this is fascinating. the people claim that they know most of islam are the people who are the most ignorant in my opinion but also the most prejudiced in their own opinion about islam. knowledge apparently is

nurturing prejudice and that is because of our game equally new institution called. people who seem to watch "fox news" and trusted the most think that they know more about islam than anybody else and have extremely unfavorable ratings towards muslims. that is really fascinating. in the last two or three years, especially since you been to the mosque issue, islamaphobia has become a campaign strategy for the republican party. nobody cares whether imam is raising money or not for the mosque at wtc. it was only until november that it was such a big issue. i wrote weight until the elections are over and nobody will worry.

we will see that issue come up again as we get closer to the next election. so islamaphobia in combination with fox has become a campaign strategy for the republican party. without urges toward muslim herman cain would have no status in this entire republican nomination. if it is one point candidate, i know how to hurt muslims and i can show you how. that seems to be his entire campaign strategy. the second thing that i want to point out is that if you look at this data about the media, you find that this number is very disturbing. americans to trust who trust broadcast news networks are least likely to report knowing a lot about muslims. so only 7% of the people who watch broadcast news say that they know about islam and understand it.

people who seem to watch "fox news" seemed to claim that they know a lot about islam and they are prejudiced towards muslims. so i think that a lot of mischief that is being caused by "fox news" is the dividend of the stuff that broadcast news are not doing. if the mainstream news channels did a better job of educating the americans about islam and muslims, then i think that vacuum of knowledge will not be exploited as much by "fox news." and that is an important lesson i think from this report. i also want to talk about the good guys. at first when i read the report the first time i was constantly distracted by all the negatives. when i read at the second time, i said oh my god while bigots will be bigots the good guys are also scary.

for example, if you look at the state on the question of feeling of -- of concern, muslims wearing the burqa, muslims at the mosque and muslims praying at airports etc. those who seem to be uncomfortable are 48, 56, 40%. those are really high numbers. and even from those who are democrats, and those who watch public television and those who do not watch "fox news," the numbers of ignorance about islam and prejudice of islam continues to hover around 30%. so while we can blame fox and right-wing leaders and preachers for fostering and nurturing the discourse of hate, against muslims probably, but the others are also not doing very well and that to me is also a worrisome

issue. especially for american muslims who see america as their home, there is the idea of permanent deportation that is not possible. now nearly 40% of all american muslims are indigenous muslims and within another 10 or 15 years the majority of american muslims will be indigenous americans. so this whole idea that we will continue to be unaccepting of islam is disturbing. i also would like to add an impression to the -- how am i doing on time? >> pretty close. >> okay. i also have one question. beatitudes, the data that i am interpreting as perhaps prejudicial, how much of that is being affected by the general political climate in this country? the polarization that is taking

place in the united states, united states, the perception that obama is not really one of us and this foreign guy from africa who sometimes wears a turbine is take no for our country. you know obama is the only guy i know who is converting to islam in slow motion. you know, and one point he was 30% muslim and now he is 20% muslim. i think by 2012, by the time we are pulling in november he will be 50% muslim. so, and then the joblessness, the insecurity about the economy, and they think a major global restructuring of the united states as a less powerful economic and military entity i think is -- the shock that we are not the big honcho that we used to be, all of that also i think it's manifesting in their prejudices towards primarily islam and muslims and they think that perhaps while it is quite

possible that the surveys may be underestimating the amount of prejudice there is towards muslims because nobody wants to tell people that look i am the bigot on the phone when they answer these questions, but even though they might be underestimating the prejudice against muslims that it is also quite possible that it is superficial and reacting to the current economic and political environment. and i think that once things get better, these numbers will get that are too. thank you. [applause] >> well the questioner works their way up i want reminded viewers to remind the viewers that they can comment -- i want to remind viewers they can comment at hashtag diversity pulled. we invite dissent as well as questions are many point of view including perhaps muslims who are republicans or "fox news" viewers.

muqtedar thank you for joining our conversation. dr. casanova dr. said dr. casanova it is on the honor to have you here are too. >> i'm thankful for the invitation. i have for brief points or comments which i will keep to two minutes each will be sufficient. first, the relation between private opinion and public opinion, what we actually call public opinion is privately self opinions made public by such surveys of course as this one. it is important -- change by being made public and what are they reinforcing loops between the media, private prejudices in a positive sense and prejudgment approaching the negative sense of a not write views of things. so in the survey results we saw a striking look between the

media, the media we watch and the pre-judgments we have, especially of course this comes extremely striking in the case of "fox news." and one question i have is do we have any evidence that, when public opinion is made public it ever leads to changing our prejudices or are we only reinforcing what we see in our selves in certain groups. i am not concerned about it so the public opinion reinforces that i belong to the right group. i don't think ever public opinion leads to changing prejudice him. this of course is a very interesting issue. the second is the striking points between views, opinions attitudes and prejudices towards immigrants. the striking consistencies are all groups in america, religious

groups, white evangelical protestants, catholics, black partisans but also liberals and conservatives. they are very similarly favorable or unfavorable view towards muslims and this is striking because an american muslims and immigrants are two radically different groups. most immigrants are muslims and most muslims are -- in america muslims are a small proportion of immigrants and in one pull muslims are not -- so the fact that the two are put together is very interesting. imagine if actually they would be the same group. then of course the prejudice would be doubled which is what imagine what happens in europe. in europe, to be in the immigrant and to be of no racially -- imagine in the

19th century blacks and catholics. most catholics were blacks and most blacks were catholics. most muslims were hispanic and most hispanics were muslims or of course the prejudice would be of course very very striking. it is very interesting to us this question of how the two things are linked together. ..

i'm not sure in the most striking that less favorable ambivalent views to words them in the hispanics immigration but here the important issue is how the immigration enters. it's a good thing for the minorities and in the country the prejudice we must watch had it not been this the case and we see for instance how the muslims also less favorable reviews are still 58% of americans not islam but of american muslims, much higher than the only 45% who have favorable views while 46%

said unfavorable and the most striking difference with tear up where in europe you have the fusion of the religious prejudice, secular prejudice, politically right prejudice, left, the extreme right, the catholic center, the liberal sector, all of them gang up on muslims and islam. thank god in america we are divided. [laughter] we are divided and therefore we cannot to gang up on them. as in this respect to de nativism in america in the 19th century is easily unviable from the view because precisely the american society is changing so dramatically but also precisely because the majority is not possible. it would be precise in the republican majority and the white majority in the 19th century it is not possible to

the society any more racially much more diverse and it hasn't even appears in the category. the age has disappeared. the chinese work in the most racially discriminated nativist attack. finally on the fourth and final point about the future about are they so much more open because as it points out they are the most religiously and ethnically diverse generation and the country and its one interesting point or is it because they're so young, namely the question is for the local port and as they grow older they will also become less tolerant of the diversity and this is of course the issue about young people being less

religious. young people are always less religious and they become more religious and get married and have children. so this we know and this has been an issue that all argue against people using the evidence of the next generation therefore the american people are going to be in was religious because the generations are less religious. it is the communication of both factors and they are distinguished is disaggregate what is characteristic of the generation because they are young and what it is because they represent the future of the country. think you. [applause] i have this question in my mind of someone express's a private opinion and a forest and there's no pollster around to record of you what is the public opinion? what a wonderful presentation.

before you go, raviv just wanted to put a few other numbers on the table in response and presentation and then we will go to the twitter feet and then opened up for questions but we will keep also going to the viewers on c-span. >> thanks, ej. there's one more thing i can respond to but i want to take a couple moments that may help put a few more things on the ground related to the things that dr. kahn raised. one is the source of about knowledge, knowledge of islam in particular and about the belief and practice of the muslims. the source of knowledge matters. interestingly enough dr. kahn said that it's true that those who said the most report knowing more because than those who have other news sources.

however, on this question there were two groups that say they know more than others and the other curtis public television viewers who tend to be on the opposite end of the opinions spectrum on this particular question so what we have is those who say they must trust public television saying that they know a lot and those who however the numbers are small even for those groups most say they don't know a lot but they are higher for the two groups and the difference is those who say the most watched fox news or twice that court is like twice the size of their group the most trust so there is a kind of asymmetry in that regard. the other thing i want to just raise is how much is this affected by the polarization of the country and i want to reemphasize the point i do think that it's right as dr. kahn said to put an explanation on this that having the opinion on islamic and on the immigration and immigrants is well is

becoming a kind of defining feature of the american public debate and how people locate themselves in the ideological circles as well, and that i think we kind of identified as a looming issue about a year ago and we got evidence that that is coming into the provision. finally on the question of the correlation, you know, the kind of views of muslims and immigrants we do see the striking patterns. however, it is clear there's a correlation so we ran the correlation analysis to see the favorability of muslims connected with and it is statistically significant but very modest and the favorability of the muslims and hispanics and the correlation is specifically statistic but very modest so it is there but it is very complicated. it isn't a one-to-one

correlation and there's different dynamics happening in that debate. and the last thing that both of you raised is this high favorability rating and then some policy issues there doesn't translate in a one-to-one direction that's absolutely true to read a couple reasons may be and it is clearly the case that when these were all telephone surveys people call and sort of answer and as a human being, stranger on the other end of the line asking questions something sociologists are talking about is the social desirability that me and fleet numbers and we know for example the number of people who attend religious services on a weekly basis is probably about double the number of people ought to lie there on any given sunday. it's the kind of desirability of fact and there probably aren't enough of you is how the number of people say they actually attend religious service on a weekly basis of america and people understand understanding the direction that the social

desirability effect works is actually quite interesting so if there's a social desire ability that is and fleeting for a simple favorability numbers it tells you something about what people expect is acceptable and the society and that truly matters for the debates. for how the iran and the last thing about the melanie >> caller: ward or lifecycles is a huge debate in the sociological circles when people get older, kids from a mortgage to become more conservative. you're right every generation is less religious, the younger generation because they tend to join churches and they have church but there's good evidence this generation is less religious than evin previous generations were at this point in time in their life cycle so there's something new and different happening with religion and the unaffiliated millennials generation and this generation is more diverse and just one point on that that one of the things we find this to be predictors on these issues is

true on issues like gay and lesbian rights that social relationships matter for people's views and when we run their regression models to tease out what are the most independent predictors of one's view on this is kind of issues that relationships matter and it's true in both the case of immigrants and muslims that never having contact with someone muslim is a hi predictor of having a sort of negative view towards muslims and the same is true never having contact with his genex is a kind of high predictor, independent predictor holding all kind of other things constant. so there's certainly a sense the millennials generation be the most diverse that we have ever seen ever is those things as long as the social relationships stay intact as they move to the life cycle and the way they are now will continue to be a factor >> i had with a french pollster who observed that americans over report attendance at religious

services because they feel guilty when they don't go and the french under report they feel guilty when they do. i had no idea there is a scientific finding but it's a wonderful observation. >> the sociability in the >> the sociability in thern europeans seem to be modern to be secular therefore they should not be as religious as they are and when you ask them they tell you 30% they go, but only 20% are religious so the scripture of the resource as well as the actual practice. thank you so much, professor. belli will give you a chance to respond if we can go to our tweet first or do you have something --.

the views expressed in the survey drive you all over this already but just again neil with the progress of change campaign committee in washington wanted to see any analysis of the causation between the media consumption and the public opinion is a kind of do they have their views to have negative perceptions or does the data show that negative perception watch fox and then secondly the other question that came up came through the interfaith alliance, one of the fathers wanted to know of the 12% who don't think religious freedom is a foundation of the u.s. what exactly do they believe in and did you actually do exploration of that as well? >> we did not ask a follow-up question what we think it is

founded on. we have some other data that has a fairly high number of americans who will say we actually overlap them what say that america is founded as a christian nation. that would be the alternative to that question rather than found on religious liberty. and again, there's probably to do the analysis there's probably some overlap between people who would say in some ways both inconsistent. the question on the causation is the thing that sort of just haunts the political scientists, kind of sorting out the causation we can't fully sort out the correlation is not causation, right, that's the mantra of the social science but what we can say, the closest we can do is we did run regression models to tease out whether there are other intervening variables that somehow or explaining for example. >> fox news on sorry, but on the media question whether the media influences views or whether people will certain views

gravitate toward certain media because they hold those we can't sort that all and to be our questions are about the most trusted media sources and frequency of the use but people say the most trust the television news source. they hold and a lot of other demographic variables constant. what we see is that trusting fox news does show it to be a solid independent predictor of the views on muslims and views on islam that is holding constant being conservative, being a republican region gender education and a bunch of other demographic variables but that doesn't cause the issue causality but what it does is it is not some intervening variable let chollet explaining that that it's actually the most trusting fox news is an independent

predictor apart from in fact it is quite as powerful as any other thing in the model living in the south and other things you might think of the would be strong predictors. >> one of the interesting things about fox is the second biggest owner of fox is a muslim in saudi arabia. that is an interesting fact in the profit-making enterprise and then gives $20 million to the universities to combat what fox is doing. figure that out. if you look abroad media studies you will find that the reader has changed they don't go looking for information, we are shopping for evidence that will confirm our pre-existing opinion on certain issues. so i have a feeling that the fox audience is preselected by the attitude they already have.

but fox does is talk legitimizes by look i have this information and i have this expert on islam to simply come here and verify your work about islam so they are merely combating to confirm the prejudice and opinions that the consumers already have. >> we were speculating this at breakfast with some folks and on the one hand as robbie importantly underscored that fox news or the media consumption question generally is partly attitudinal as well as behavior that a naughty inslee guinn 65, 35 on one side and come out 83 code 20 and have a complete change in view and reinforce the new views but this goes beyond the confines of the survey to try to figure out what it means. so, who in our present audience

-- what's bring a microphone to the front, our old friend. mr. mitchell. >> garate mitchell from the natural report. when we last met with your earlier survey on american values it seems to me that bill made the observation that one of the most salient pieces of information that came out of that was coming and i believe as he made it he looked towards the white house and said it would be important for someone who understood the survey to understand the importance of american exceptional was some. today -- and by the way there seem to be some moves by the president shortly thereafter that suggest maybe he had understood that.

so, today bill begins his presentation by quoting a chester san america the country with the soul of a church and then says in that church is america or americanism. and i wonder if you could flesh that out all little bit for us. what does that mean, and whether that is directed at the white house or candidates and other parts what is to take away, what does that really mean? >> that exceptional question. how much time do we have? >> let me be inadequately had briefed but i will stay very close to the survey itself in an effort to answer that question. as we reflected on the the survey thinking about the essays we narrowed a very rough and

ready answer to your question down to the three propositions. number one, a broad acceptance of american constitutional principles and values. now obviously there is a big zone of contestation but there is also a big zone of agreement among americans in the rough and ready way as to what those are. second is buying into the american dream, however temporarily counterfactual that commitment may be. in the sense that people who want to become americans are expected to embrace the personal responsibility, family responsibility contribution to

the community etc. that general basket and third, you are expected to accept one of the principal symbolism practices of american community that is the english language and the survey that a lot of non-immigrant americans have reservations about a lot of immigrant americans on the ground that is a stick to themselves and don't learn english and are seen as forming enclosed communities. that is a big problem. so, those are three propositions about the religion of america being american is some that i think are completely consistent with the findings of the survey.

let me take the opportunity to draw out some of the implications of the parallel that i drew between the position of catholics in america and the 19th century it is very may well be when you simply look at american catholics in the 1870's and 90's at the time it was around romanism and rebellion and controversy and things of that sort and what people thought about, with them on catholic americans thought about, catholics namely the theocratic tendencies, the logical objections for liberals and constitutionalism to some foreign entity, the pope, all of those may have been counterfactual believes none the

less american catholics took those seriously and did their part to rebut them coming and one of the things that i think the representatives of the american muslim community should ask themselves is whether they now have a historical task they did not choose that must discharge to rebut the propositions that stand in the way of their full acceptance and integration. in the case of american catholics it meant not only rebutting falsehoods but also making important doctrinal shifts that removed the other points of disagreement. there are things that muslim and america could do in the next two decades of the 21st century. to pound home the point that there is a distinction between

lifting a life according to the sharia law as an individual or as a community as opposed to the theo craddock and pulse to describe in the wall of the land because that is the question of the survey. it's nothing to do with the communal observance. it has everything to do with the expansion of that to the legal and constitutional framework of the united states and there were similar fears about catholics of 19th century so it seems to me that you told half the story that there's another half of the story. there's a reciprocal responsibility on the part of the muslim community. and i am making that point especially because i am struck as a student of american history by the fact that the reaction against american muslims after 9/11 wasn't nearly as severe as the reaction against japanese-americans after december 7th, 1941 and i was

struck by the fact that president george w. bush was coming for his share of criticism did a lot more than fdr to the force of prejudice against such groups so there has been some reciprocity on them on the muslim americans saw it coming and i think that there is room for a sort of broad dialogue here. >> could i say very quickly i want to see one of the things that harmed me looking at these numbers is thinking about history because i think two things. one on the language front, there was always the view that the new immigrant groups were not assimilating fast enough on the language ground. we always had for renehan language media going back in our history. second, the parallel between catholics in the antiislamic feeling it just strikes both of us as a very, very strong and as

bill suggested there has been changed a few will there was change over time on both sides of that though it took a very long time one can measure the distance between the house with campaign in 1928 and the john kennedy campaign in 1960. that was a lot of years. nonetheless, it did eventually change although i suppose if you are a muslim american that is an awful long time to wait but it has happened. >> i don't think anybody who had any kind of leadership position in the community would disagree with what they had to say. in fact the community has been conscious of this for more than a decade and a half. for example, the perception that islam and democracy are incompatible and i dedicated my life to make the point that it is not, and that has two things. bonn is diffusing the

misconception about islam other than the media, but also required the reforming interpretation itself. so what you're suggesting is to change the perceptions of islam. so both of those have been on the issue of islam and democracy. in 1999 there's a significant amount of american muslims saying that democracy is quicker and belief and not what is no longer an issue, nobody talks about it. similarly, there are other aspects of which -- not to discuss economic reform the american muslim leaders and imams and thinkers have been working on this issue. what is the challenges that the community is small, the media as a result of 9/11 is extremely intense, and we also had this