By Paul Chesser on 5.1.09 @ 10:50AM
The CNN
Sucks Web site today reports on findings from a recent
analysis by the Pee-yew Forum on
Hatred for Traditional Christian Beliefs, which isolated out
this question from a larger poll taken by its Pee-yew sister: "Do
you think the use of torture against
suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can
often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified,
or never be justified?"
The CNN
Sucks Web site today reports
on a recent analysis by the
Pee-yew Forum on Hatred for
Traditional Christian Beliefs, which isolated out this
question from a larger poll taken by its Pee-yew sister: "Do you
think the use of torture against
suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can
often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified,
or never be justified?"
Without defining what practices they view as torture to include
(Waterboarding? Insects in the room? The
attention grasp?), Pee-yew let fly its review about a limited
number of white U.S. churchgoers because they failed to sample
what they thought were a representative sample in other
racial/religious categories. The responses:
More than half of people who attend services at least once
a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against
suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only
42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services
agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew
Forum on Religion & Public Life.
White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most
likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more
than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any
religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four
in 10 of them did.
The analysis is based on a Pew Research
Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April
14-21.
To give added context, the sampling size of people who identified
themselves as "white evangelical Protestants" was 174, which
means a total of 108 of them said undefined torture was "often"
or "sometimes" justified.
Meanwhile, in the name of balance I look forward to Pee-yew's
future poll in which they ask 174 Muslims whether they believe
public beheadings are "often" or "sometimes" justified. They can
feel free to ask a couple whiteys the same question, but make
sure they keep the sampling size small enough to not bother
analyzing their responses.
topics:
Torture
