Islamic Terrorism: Americans Have Double Standards Over Terror Attacks Carried Out By Muslims Compared To Christians

Americans exhibit a double standard when it comes to religious violence, extending far greater benefit of the doubt that attackers claiming to be Christian aren’t really Christian than they do for attacks carried out in the name of Islam, a survey has indicated.

Responding to a survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, released Thursday, just 19 percent said that they believe people who commit acts of violence in the name of Christianity are genuinely Christians. When the same question was asked regarding Muslims, the number jumped to 39 percent.

The poll comes two weeks after reports emerged that the administration of President Donald Trump intends to change a government program combatting violent extremism to focus solely on Islamic extremism.

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly chided predecessor President Barack Obama for not using the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” something Trump vowed to eradicate “from the face of the earth” during his inauguration speech.

The survey showed there is a considerable split on the issue between Republicans and Democrats. Only a third of Republicans said they did not doubt the religious authenticity of a perpetrator of a violent attack when they claimed to be a Muslim. In contrast, that number jumped to 75 percent when the question is applied to Christians.

A greater percentage of Democrats also gave Christians the benefit of the doubt compared to Muslims, although by a considerably smaller margin – 79 percent versus 55 percent.

When the responses are divided based on the religious group of the person being surveyed, the double standard is the greatest for white evangelical Protestants, while the responses are much more even for Christians and Muslims from the religiously unaffiliated.

Studies have repeatedly shown that those claiming to be Muslims are not responsible for the vast majority of terrorist attacks in the United States. Between 1980 and 2005 just six percent of attacks were committed by Muslim extremists, according to FBI data. In Europe over the past five years, only two percent of terrorists were Muslim, as recorded by Europol. However, terrorism committed by Muslim extremists has been on the rise in both the U.S. and Europe over the past two years.