News
2007-02-13
Study: U.S.
occupies bigotry median
Northern Ireland
is "the hate capital of the West," according to new
university research, with an astonishing 44% of its citizens
Northern Ireland
is "the hate capital of the West," according to new
university research, with an astonishing 44% of its citizens
proving disturbingly homophobic.
The research from
Northern Ireland's University of Ulster, to be
published in the economics journal Kyklos, said
that the country leads Western nations in its animosity
toward gays and immigrants, while the United States is
almost exactly in the middle, bigotry-wise, of 23
nations studied.
Vani Borooah,
professor of applied economics at Ulster, and John Mangan,
professor of economics at Australia's University of
Queensland, collaborated in the study, which surveyed
32,000 people across 19 European counties, Australia,
New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.
The Human Rights
and Values survey asked respondents what they thought of
minority groups—and how they would feel about having
members of certain groups as their neighbors.
The five groups
included members of other races, immigrants or foreign
workers, Muslims, Jews, and homosexuals.
An astonishing
44% of the 1,000 respondents in Northern Ireland said they
didn't want members of even one of the five groups as their
neighbors.
The bigotry
proportion of Northern Ireland was followed closely by
Greece with 43%.
The lowest
proportion occurred in Sweden, with 13%.
Homophobia was by
far the main source of bigotry in most Western
countries: More than 80% of bigoted people in Northern
Ireland and Canada, and 75% of bigots in Austria, the
United States, Great Britain, Ireland, and Italy,
wouldn't want gays or lesbians as neighbors.
In Scandinavian
countries the main target of hostility turned toward
Muslims.
Seventy-four
percent of bigoted Danes, 68% of bigoted Swedes, and 63% of
bigoted Icelanders did not want Muslims as neighbors.
* The study also
came up with the following conclusions:
* Women are less
likely to be bigoted than men.
* There is
evidence that financial dissatisfaction might also be a
source of bigotry.
Students were
less likely to be bigots than nonstudents.
To read the full
report go to www.publicaffairs.ulster.ac.uk/podcasts/Bigotry.pdf.
(Hassan Mirza, Gay.com/U.K.)
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