Poll: Islam Encourages Violence

The President says the Islamic State isn't Islamic, Americans disagree.

The Washington Post's Aaron Blake reports the results of a Pew Research Center poll released just before the President's Wednesday speech. In that speech he repeated his belief that Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam.

Fifty percent of all respondents disagreed with the President and instead agreed with the following statement:

Is the Islamic Religion More Likely than Others to Encourage Violence?

Thirty-nine percent disagreed. At least 50% of each of the following subgroups agreed with the statement: men, whites, those aged 50 and older, those with no college, all Republicans, white Protestants, and Catholics.

Groups least likely to agree: blacks, those under 30, liberal Democrats, and those with no religion.

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Obama grew up with Muslims who were probably nice people, I've taught Muslims who were great students and nice people. So what? It means little.

In the days when Catholicism via the Inquisition was torturing people to death and burning them at the stake, I'm sure you could have found nice Catholics. It meant little then. Militant Catholicism was wrong.

Today the offender is Islam and that there are nice Muslims is beside the point. Militant Islam is wrong, a problem for its believers and for the rest of us too.