In a post earlier today I looked at the dumbing down taking place in America led in large part by the embrace of ignorance and idiocy by today's republican Party and it's knuckle dragging party base. Not coincidentally, the party base is dominated by "conservative Christians" and "evangelical Christians." These folks reject any scientific knowledge that doesn't comport with their child like religious beliefs or threaten their sense of self-worth. A new Pew Research Center survey found that 30% of Americans believe that gays can become straight. The 30% figure interestingly correlates to the percentage of the population that identifies as conservative/evangelical Christians. The logic - or more accurately, utter lack of logic - of these folks who believe in "pray away the gay" by extension should believe that one can pray away being fat ot pray away being ugly. The number of ugly fat people in the Bible Belt alone shows the idiocy of such a belief system. Here are highlights from Huffington Post:
In the wake of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's announcement that he will sign a bill banning so-called "conversion therapy" for gay teens, the Pew Research Center pointed to recent research that more than one in three Americans believe sexual orientation can be changed.
On Tuesday Pew republished the data -- gathered in 2012 -- in a sobering reminder of just how far this country has to go in terms of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender acceptance. The survey concluded that slightly more than half of all Americans believe an LGBT individual cannot change sexual orientation -- while 36 percent believe it's possible.
Over the past decade the percentage of white evangelical Protestants and black Protestants who consider homosexuality sinful has remained relatively stable, according to Pew Research Center studies. Among white evangelical Protestants, 78 percent still consider homosexual activity a sin, as do 79 percent of black Protestants. The percentage of black Protestants opposed to homosexual behavior actually rose slightly during the last 10 years.
This relatively strong undercurrent of anti-gay sentiment among certain religious Americans may also help explain why the U.S. continues to lag behind much of the Western world in terms of LGBT acceptance. An international survey conducted by Pew researchers between March and May of this year found Americans generally less accepting of LGBT individuals -- and more religious -- than their peers in Spain, Germany, Britain and Canada.
These graphs speak volumes: its the uneducated, conservative church goers and those in the South who believe that gays can change.
Oh, can we talk about hypocrisy:
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