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Although prior research has shown race and affiliation with a fundamentalist Protestant church to be important predictors of support for the death penalty, this research has given little attention to the possible combined effect of race and religious affiliation on views about capital punishment. Do blacks and whites with similar religious affiliations view the use of capital punishment in the same way? I test three explanations of the relationship between race and religious affiliation with views about the use of capital punishment: political views, salience of religion, and religious ideology. Black and white fundamentalists are very similar on measures of religious behavior and beliefs, but black fundamentalists show the least support for the death penalty, while white fundamentalists show the greatest support. This pattern persists even after controlling for the respondent's political views, salience of religion, and religious ideology. These results call into question the assumption of homogeneity among fundamentalist Protestants and indicate that future research on sensitive moral, social, and political issues should consider dual racial and religious contexts in understanding public views on these issues.
The author would like to thank Francis Cullen, the editor of JQ, and the anonymous referees for their comments on previous drafts of this paper. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1996 annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology, held in Chicago.
The author would like to thank Francis Cullen, the editor of JQ, and the anonymous referees for their comments on previous drafts of this paper. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1996 annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology, held in Chicago.
Notes
The author would like to thank Francis Cullen, the editor of JQ, and the anonymous referees for their comments on previous drafts of this paper. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1996 annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology, held in Chicago.