[Well, this is late. Weeks later than I intended, and several months after it would have been most relevant. But I spent the time making graphs, so I might as well.]

So, why was I upset with the press on January 21st, even before the news on Citizens United v. FEC? Those of you who bother reading what little I do on Twitter may have an inkling. But I wanted a little more than 140 characters and a bit of time to do a bit more justice than my fast reaction.

On NPR's news coverage that day, I heard a story about a poll on religious prejudice in Americans released by he Gallup Center for Muslim Studies which found that . They found that, of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism, "Islam is the most negatively viewed." (link) While this wasn't a particularly surprising result, the news story I heard didn't exactly go into detail about the methodology, and it seemed to me like it was forgetting something important about religious prejudice in the United States -- Americans (as a whole) may not like Islam, but they really don't like atheism. So I went to look at the full study, to see if it had more comprehensive information.

Question 2: What is your opinion of each of the following religions? _______

Nope, atheism was not included in the study at all.

There was a more inclusive poll conducted a little earlier in 2009. In September 2009, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released their study on perceptions of religion in the United States [pdf]. The Washington Post referred to it in their article on the Gallup poll: "[Pew] released a poll in September showing that Muslims are thought to suffer more discrimination than any other U.S. religious group, by a wide margin." Here's the relevant question from the Pew study:

Question 170: Just your impression, in the United States today, is there a lot of discrimination against _______, or not?

But that's perceived prejudice. Here's the result for a question closer to Question 2 from the Gallup poll:

Question 141: Now thinking about some specific religious groups... Is your overall opinion of _______ very favorable, mostly favorable,mostly UNfavorable, or very unfavorable?

Even in the articles for this poll (that I could find on Google News), the focus stays primarily on Muslims. It is not mentioned that feelings toward atheism are worse among Americans. The story that got put out in the press was one focusing on the discrimination Muslims face in the U.S. as "...58 percent of Americans believe Muslims face a lot of discrimination in the United States. By contrast the same numbers for atheists and Mormons are 26 and 24 percent respectively." [Reuters -- emphasis mine] The fact that more Americans actually had negative opinions toward atheism than Islam was unreported, even by Pew's own release.

Undoubtedly, there is far more anti-Islam sentiment in the United States than we would hope, and surveys seeking understanding of that prejudice and articles confronting us with that understanding are a good step toward reducing religious intolerance. But in an environment where pundits can frame "secularists" as the enemy, not only without fear of unwanted controversy (as opposed to that they seek to manufacture), but even as a way to engage their audience, we cannot simply ignore the prejudice non-believers face. And so I was disappointed to find that the media had.