Unpacking Pew’s New Study on Religion in America

2 CommentsChristianity,

This week the Pew Research Center released its latest study on America’s changing religious landscape.

The survey polled Americans in 2007 and 2014, asking them their religious affiliations along with questions about the importance of religion in their lives. The survey is making headlines primarily because it shows an increase in unaffiliated Americans (what some call the “nones”—people who do not identify with any religion) alongside a decrease in Christianity.

But are the stats really that simple? And what does this survey reveal about religion in America?

Not as Simple as it Seems

There is no doubt Pew’s survey is extensive. There is also no doubt the findings are troubling; Christians ought to be troubled by any evidence that people are leaving the faith. However, many are portraying these findings in very simple terms—as if people are simply ceasing to go to church and are turning to atheism. The truth is much more complicated.

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City of Eureka Springs Rushes “Anti-Discrimination” Ordinance

Current Events, ,

Last night the City Council of Eureka Springs rushed a so-called “anti-discrimination” ordinance through a single city council meeting.

Under the rules for local government meetings, an ordinance must be read three times before the city council may take a vote to pass the ordinance. This is intended to break the reading and discussion of an ordinance up over multiple meetings, giving council members an opportunity to hear from members of the public and devise amendments to the ordinance. However, council members may move to “suspend the rules” and read an ordinance three times in one meeting before taking a final vote.

Traditionally, city councils and quorum courts suspend the rules when an ordinance is noncontroversial or is addressing some sort of emergency situation. It’s a way to expedite the process under special circumstances. However, the City of Eureka Springs chose to rush a controversial ordinance through in a single council meeting at which very few members of the public were present to comment.

The ordinance is similar to the one the Fayetteville City Council tried to pass last year in that it extends special protections and privileges to citizens based on, among other things, sexual-orientation or gender identity, and it levies criminal penalties against violators–in this case, a $100-$500 fine per violation.

The Fayetteville ordinance created a Civil Rights Administrator who enforced it, while the Eureka Springs ordinance tasks the mayor with the responsibility of handling alleged violations of the ordinance.

Because the ordinance is substantially similar to the ordinance originally proposed in Fayetteville last summer, it will have the same unintended consequences:

  • The ordinance opens churches and ministers to criminal prosecution. It exempts church sanctuaries and chapels, but no other piece of church property. This means a Eureka Springs church could be forced to open its fellowship hall for a same-sex reception. It also means churches cannot consider sexual orientation and gender identity when hiring bookkeepers, receptionists, and other “secular” staff members.
  • The ordinance opens people of faith to criminal prosecution. Christian bakers, florists, wedding chapel owners, photographers, and others have faced litigation and prosecution in other states for declining to participate in same-sex ceremonies. This ordinances opens people of faith in Eureka Springs to the very same possibility of criminal prosecution.
  • The ordinance does not exempt private schools. Private, religious schools face the prospect of fines and prosecution for declining to hire a gay or transgender teacher under this ordinance.
  • The ordinance inadvertently allows men to use women’s restrooms, locker rooms, and changing areas. The ordinance says you cannot treat someone differently because of their gender identity, but it does not address public restrooms. By protecting gender identity without including exceptions for public restrooms and similar facilities, the ordinance permits a biological male who claims to be female to use the women’s restroom at any business or public site. This means grown men could use the women’s restrooms at parks, public pools, sports stadiums, and similar locations where children are present.

Photo Credit: Photolitherland at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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Fayetteville Voters Repeal Contentious Ordinance

1 CommentCurrent Events, , , ,

Yesterday Fayetteville citizens repealed the city’s controversial “nondiscrimination” ordinance by a vote of 52% to 48%, according to KFSM News.

The Fayetteville City Council passed the ordinance last summer in spite of widespread opposition to the measure. Local residents launched a campaign to repeal the ordinance following its passage. Last night, those efforts proved successful.

Duncan Campbell, who helped lead the effort to repeal the ordinance, told reporters,

“We wanted to repeal the ordinance because we didn’t believe it made Fayetteville a fairer city or a freer city. It did just the opposite. It was called the Civil Rights Ordinance, but it was misnamed. It was an ordinance that actually took away civil rights and freedom from people. It criminalized civil behavior. It didn’t accomplish the stated purpose of the ordinance and it was crafted by an outside group, it wasn’t something Fayetteville residents put together.”

The Washington, D.C., based Human Rights Campaign contributed more than $160,000 to keep the ordinance on the books.

Opponents of the Fayetteville ordinance included the local Chamber of Commerce; local ministers and churches; Fayetteville businesses; the editorial staff at Northwest Arkansas Media; area lawmakers; and–clearly–thousands of Fayetteville voters.

We have written repeatedly about the unintended consequences of the ordinance, and I applaud Fayetteville voters for choosing to repeal it.

If you would like to read some of the unintended consequences we found in the ordinance, click here.

Photo Credit: “Old Main from the northwest, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas (autumn)” by Brandonrush – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

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