Utah Among the Worst States for Stigma and Discrimination Against Nonreligious People, Survey Finds
Salt Lake City, UT—May 5, 2020—Today, the civil rights organization American Atheists released Reality Check: Being Nonreligious in America, a comprehensive report drawn from the groundbreaking U.S. Secular Survey. Organized by a team of researchers and counting nearly 34,000 nonreligious participants, including 554 Utahns, the U.S. Secular Survey is the largest ever data collection project on secular Americans and their experiences.
“At 75 million people, religiously unaffiliated Americans are as large a demographic as either Evangelical Christians or Catholics, and explicitly nonreligious people comprise a growing share of the population, yet before the U.S. Secular Survey there had been a lack of focused research on our community,” said Alison Gill, Vice President for Legal and Policy at American Atheists, who helped lead the project.
“What we found shocked us. Discrimination and stigma against nonreligious Americans is widespread and extremely harmful, and it was most intense in very religious communities—notably in Utah,” she added. “This report shows that the more religious the community, the more likely nonreligious people are to face discrimination and stigma.”
With 8 in 10 Utah participants (80%) calling their community “very religious,” Utah ranks as the most religious state in the country. Similarly, Utah survey participants reported that Utah had the highest rate of stigma against nonreligious people in the country after Mississippi.
"I was raised Mormon in Utah and, at age 7, children from church called me racial slurs. When I told the bishop, he refused to believe me because those kids were from 'good families," said Jayrod Garrett, a Utah National Guard veteran. "I finally left Mormonism as an adult after witnessing the LDS church's discriminatory attitude toward LGBTQ people. I couldn't take it anymore."
“I never received satisfactory answers from LDS leaders to my questions, so I stopped attending, becoming a 'Jack Mormon,'" said American Atheists’ Utah State Director Dan Ellis. “When I came out as an atheist, I experienced discrimination from family members, and I lost friends—even ones who weren’t particularly religious.”
The Reality Check report found that involvement with organized secular community groups is an important protective factor that correlated with reduced likelihood of loneliness and depression. Members of national secular organizations, like American Atheists, were 34.8% less likely than non-members to experience depression, while members of local secular groups were 29.3% less likely.
“Particularly in Utah, where discrimination against nonreligious people is so prevalent, atheists must band together,” added Ellis, a past president and board member of Atheists of Utah. “Building community is so important to reduce the negative effects of stigma we regularly feel in this state.”
Contact Us
If you have questions about Reality Check: Being Nonreligious in America or the U.S. Secular Survey, our team is happy to connect you to our experts, researchers, and nonreligious people across the country who have compelling, unique stories to tell.
If you’re a member of the media and would like to get in touch with us, please reach out to Tom Van Denburgh, American Atheists’ Communications Director, by emailing tvandenburgh@atheists.org or by calling (862) 221-6547.
About Us
The U.S. Secular Survey and Reality Check: Being Nonreligious in America are projects of American Atheists, a national civil rights group that represents the interests of atheists and nonreligious people in the United States. The survey and report were produced in collaboration with Strength in Numbers Consulting Group, a progressive research, evaluation, and strategy firm.