Huge five-fold increase in religious lobbying in Washington DC

The number of organisations engaged in religious lobbying or religion-related advocacy in Washington DC has increased roughly fivefold in the past four decades, from fewer than 40 in 1970 to more than 200 today.

This is the finding of a new study on religious advocacy groups released today by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Religious groups collectively employ at least 1,000 people in the greater Washington area and spend at least $390 million a year on efforts to influence national public policy. As a whole, religious advocacy organisations work on about 300 policy issues.

For most of the past century, religious advocacy groups in Washington focused mainly on domestic affairs. Today, however, roughly as many groups work only on international issues as work only on domestic issues, and nearly two-thirds of the groups work on both, says Pew.

These are among the key findings of 'Lobbying for the Faithful: Religious Advocacy Groups in Washington, DC', which examines a total of 212 religion-related advocacy groups operating in the nation's capital.

Other major findings include:

• About one-in-five religious advocacy organisations in Washington have a Roman Catholic perspective (19 per cent) and a similar proportion is evangelical Protestant in outlook (18 per cent), while 12 per cent are Jewish and eight percent are mainline Protestant. But many smaller US religious groups, including Baha'is, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, have also established advocacy organisations in the Washington area. In fact, the number of Muslim groups (17) is about the same as the number of mainline Protestant groups (16). And the largest category today is interreligious: One-quarter of the groups studied (54) either represent multiple faiths or advocate on religious issues without representing a specific religion.

• The median annual advocacy expenditures by the 131 groups for which recent (2008 or 2009) financial data were available was nearly $1 million. More than one-third of the groups (46 groups, or 35 per cent) reported annual advocacy expenditures between $1 million and $5 million per year, while about one-in-ten (18 groups, or 14 per cent) reported spending more than $5 million a year.

• The recession in the U.S. economy from late 2007 to mid-2009 seems to have taken a toll on the budgets of many religion-related advocacy organisations. Of the 104 groups for which data on expenditures in both 2008 and 2009 were available, 56 reported that their advocacy spending was lower in 2009 than it had been in 2008. The average decline for the 56 groups was about $500,000. In the same period, 48 groups reported that their advocacy spending rose, with the average increase being about $300,000. Overall among the 104 groups, there was a net drop of about $14 million in total advocacy expenditures during this period.

• The issue agendas of religious advocacy groups touch on a wide array of domestic and foreign policy concerns. On the domestic front, the most commonly addressed issues are the relationship between church and state, the defence of civil rights and liberties for religious and other minorities, bioethics and life issues (such as abortion, capital punishment and end-of-life issues) and family/marriage issues (such as the definition of marriage, domestic violence and fatherhood initiatives).

• Internationally, the most commonly addressed concerns are human rights, debt relief and other economic issues, and the promotion of peace and democracy. About one-in-five groups (21 per cent) deal with religious freedom in particular countries or worldwide.

• More than eight-in-ten of the groups say they use targeted or mass emails to mobilise constituents. More than six-in-ten were using social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter in 2009.

• More than three-quarters (79 per cent) of the groups for which staffing data were available employ 12 or fewer people in the Washington area. More than half (55 per cent) have five or fewer employees.

The full report — including a brief history of religious advocacy in Washington — is available on the Pew Forum's website (http://www.pewforum.org/). In addition, an online directory (http://projects.pewforum.org/religious-advocacy/) includes profiles of the 212 religious advocacy groups in the study, as well as excerpts from their mission statements and financial data, where available.

The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life conducts surveys, demographic analyses and other social science research on important aspects of religion and public life in the US and around the world.

As part of the Washington-based Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy organisation, the Pew Forum does not take positions on policy debates or any of the issues it covers.

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New Pew Research Center Survey Finds Moderate Attitudes Among Muslim Americans

No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism

Washington, D.C.—As the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches, a comprehensive public opinion survey by the Pew Research Center finds no indication of increased alienation or anger among Muslim Americans in response to concerns about home-grown Islamic terrorists, controversies about the building of mosques and other pressures on this high-profile minority group in recent years. Nor does the new polling provide any evidence of rising support for Islamic extremism among Muslim Americans.

On the contrary, as found in the Pew Research Center's 2007 survey, Muslims in the United States continue to reject extremism by much larger margins than most other Muslim publics around the world, and many express concern about the possible rise of Islamic extremism. Very few Muslim Americans—just 1%—say that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are often justified to defend Islam from its enemies; an additional 7% say suicide bombings are sometimes justified in these circumstances. Fully 81% say that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilians are never justified. Comparably small percentages of Muslim Americans express favorable views of al Qaeda, and the current poll finds more holding very unfavorable views of al Qaeda now than in 2007.

Nevertheless, a significant minority (21%) of Muslim Americans report that they see a great deal or a fair amount of support for extremism in the Muslim American community. That is far below the proportion of the general public that sees at least a fair amount of support (40%). And while nearly a quarter of the public (24%) thinks that Muslim support for extremism is increasing, just 4% of Muslims agree.

Since 2007, Muslim American views of U.S. efforts to combat terrorism have improved. Currently, opinion is divided—43% say U.S. efforts are a sincere attempt to reduce terrorism while 41% do not. Four years ago, during the Bush administration, more than twice as many viewed U.S. anti-terrorism efforts as insincere rather than sincere (55% to 26%).

However, concerns about Islamic extremism coexist with the view that life for U.S. Muslims in post-9/11 America is difficult in a number of ways. Significant numbers report being looked at with suspicion (28%), and being called offensive names (22%). And while 21% report being singled out by airport security, 13% say they have been singled out by other law enforcement. However, about the same percentage today as in 2007 say that life for Muslims in the U.S. has become more difficult since 9/11. The percentage reporting they are bothered at least some by their sense that Muslim Americans are being singled out for increased government surveillance also is no greater now than four years ago (38% vs. 39%).

Politically, Muslim Americans, who lean strongly Democratic, are much more satisfied than they were four years ago. Fully 76% approve of Barack Obama's job performance; in 2007, about as many (69%) disapproved of the way George Bush handled his job as president.
The survey of 1,033 Muslim Americans, conducted April 14–July 22 in English, Arabic, Farsi and Urdu, also finds:

• Overall Satisfaction: Muslim Americans are overwhelmingly satisfied with the way things are going in their lives (82%) and continue to rate their communities very positively as places to live (79% excellent or good). Strikingly, Muslim Americans are far more satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. (56%) than is the general public (23%). Four years ago, Muslim Americans and the public at large rendered fairly similar judgments about the state of the nation.
  
• Muslim or American: A majority of Muslim Americans (56%) say that most Muslims who come to the U.S. want to adopt American customs and ways of life. In contrast, just a third (33%) of the general public believes that Muslims who come to the U.S. want to assimilate. Asked to choose, nearly half of Muslims in the U.S. (49%) say they think of themselves first as a Muslim, 26% say they think of themselves first as an American, and 18% say they are both. Among U.S. Christians, 46% say they identify as Christian first, while the same number identify as American first.
  
• Demographics: Based on data from the survey, Pew Research Center demographers estimate that there are about 1.8 million Muslim adults and 2.75 million Muslims of all ages (including children under 18) living in the United States in 2011. A 63% majority of Muslim Americans are first-generation immigrants to the U.S., with 45% having arrived in the U.S. since 1990. Slightly more than one-third (37%) were born in the U.S., including 15% who had at least one immigrant parent. About one-fourth of all Muslims are immigrants from the Middle East or North Africa, while 16% come from South Asia.
  
• Leadership: Nearly half of Muslim Americans (48%) say that Muslim leaders in the United States have not done enough to speak out against Islamic extremists; only about a third (34%) say Muslim leaders have done enough in challenging extremists. At the same time, 68% say that U.S. Muslims themselves are cooperating as much as they should with law enforcement.
  
• Mosque Controversy: A clear majority (72%) of Muslim Americans who are aware of the plan to build a mosque and Islamic center near the site of the World Trade Center say it should be allowed. More than a third (35%) say either that the project should not be allowed, or say it should be allowed but say it is a bad idea. A quarter of Muslim Americans report that mosques or Islamic centers in their communities have been the target of controversy or outright hostility.

The full report, Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism, is available on the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press website. In addition, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life offers a variety of related online resources, including an updatedinteractive map, which shows the locations of 37 proposed mosques and Islamic centers that have encountered community resistance in the last three years.

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The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. The center conducts public opinion polling, demographic studies, content analysis and other empirical social science research. It does not take positions on policy issues. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life is a project of the Pew Research Center; it delivers timely, impartial information on issues at the intersection of religion and public affairs in the U.S. and around the world. The Pew Research Center is an independently operated subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.