According to a recent poll about the role that religion plays in public life in the United States, white evangelical Christians claim they are discriminated against more than any other religious or social group in America, including Jews, Muslims and Blacks. In the survey conducted by Pew that included 2,002 American adults, more respondents said that white evangelicals are discriminated against as compared to atheists.
Of white evangelicals, white Protestants, white Catholics, black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics and those not affiliated with any religion in the above chart, white evangelicals believe they are discriminated against the most, with 50 percent respondents adopting the same stance.
According to Daily Banter’s report, most Americans would not be stunned with this revelation, as self-serving politicians, preachers and pundits have been spoon-feeding such notions to the general public for decades, so white evangelicals can call measures conceived to stop discrimination against others as being discriminatory against the evangelical way of life.
Another poll conducted by Pew earlier this year echoes the same mindset among most Americans. In that survey, says the Daily Banter, the results portray how evangelicals constantly complain about being persecuted against even though in reality it is nonbelievers that pay a much heavier price for their lack of faith in God or religion.
As is evident in the above chart, only 21 percent of Americans say they would not vote for an evangelical presidential candidate as compared to a 53 percent that say they would not vote for an atheist candidate. Here, says the Daily Banter, one should also take note of the fact that 53 percent of Americans believe faith in God is essential to being a moral person. Daily Banter says that these figures automatically translate into most Americans perceiving atheists as immoral or amoral people. Clearly that is why, in their opinion, the same percentage of Americans thinks atheists are unfit to be presidential candidates and they suggest that one can only guess why there is not one single openly atheist member in the Congress, despite 24 of them having admitted privately that they do not believe in God.
A passage from the Daily Banter report succinctly explains how they believe white evangelicals grossly overrate their victimhood:
“This is the white evangelical persecution complex quantified. Despite all the religiosity that’s so readily apparent in public life — “In God we trust” on the money, the National Prayer Breakfast, “God Bless America” signing off every major presidential speech, the continued use of “So help me God” at the end of the presidential oath of office despite nothing of the sort appearing in the oath in the Constitution, the existence of a congressional chaplain, the Ten Commandments still cropping up on public property across the country, the political death sentence that would be incurred by most politicians who publicly declare their atheism, the presence of nativity scenes on public property during Christmastime, the nauseating political pandering to ignorant creationists, the treatment of gay people as second class citizens because the Bible says so — it is the white evangelical Christians who think they suffer above all others.”
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