White evangelicals are religious group most likely to hold traditional views on moral issues
Study also shows Catholics frequently disagree with church teachings
White evangelical Protestants in the United States are likelier than U.S. Catholics to believe the abortion is morally wrong, according to the results of a survey published this month by the Pew Research Center. In fact, on a variety of issues, white evangelical Protestants are the group most likely religious group to adhere to traditional moral views, and Catholics are likelier than not to disagree with many of their church’s teachings.
If there is one moral issue that the vast majority of Americans agree on, regardless of religious belief, it is that it is wrong for a married person to have an affair.1 Ninety percent of Americans agree with that statement. The religious group least likely to find extramarital affairs immoral is atheists, but even 84 percent percent of them agree they are.
The survey results, published last week, were based primarily on responses to questions asked in March 2025 to 3,605 members of Pew’s American Trends Panel. The report also included findings from a separate ATP survey of 8,937 U.S. adults conducted last May.
Evangelicals’ views often differ from those of general population
These are among the issues where white evangelicals had moral views differing significantly from the population as a whole:
🟪 Nearly four out of five, or 78 percent, of white evangelicals believe that abortion is morally wrong. A bit less than half, 47 percent, of Americans in general (a number that includes evangelicals) agree.
🟪 About half of adults, 52 percent, say it is wrong to view pornography. But four out of five white evangelicals, 80 percent, say that.
🟪 A sizable minority, 40 percent, of Americans find homosexuality to be morally wrong. But nearly three out of four white evangelicals, 72 percent, say it is.
🟪 Six out of 10 white evangelicals say it is morally wrong for a patient to seek to end his or her life with the help of a doctor. But only about a third of the general population, 35 percent, agree with that statement.
In all four of the above issues, white evangelicals hold stronger views than any other religious subgroup included in the survey.2
There are some issues where evangelicals tend to be in agreement with the general American views that could be considered permissive. For example, only about a third (33 percent) agree that marijuana use is morally wrong, and less than half (44 percent) would say the same about getting divorced. A minority, 40 percent, find gambling to be morally wrong. But in all three cases, evangelicals’ views are more strict than those of the population as a whole.
Catholics often disagree with Catholic teaching
Some of the most striking results of the survey are the numbers of Catholics who disagree with their church’s teaching.
🟪 A slim majority of Catholics, 55 percent, do agree with the church’s view that abortion is morally wrong. But fewer than one out of seven, 13 percent, agree with church doctrine that the use of contraceptives is wrong.
🟪 A similarly small minority of Catholics, 15 percent, find in vitro fertilization to be morally wrong.
🟪 About a third of Catholics, 34 percent, say that homosexuality is morally wrong, a figure that is slightly less than that of the general population. A bit more than that, 40 percent, condemn doctor-assisted suicide.
Survey also finds strong partisan divide on some issues
Partly because religious and political identities are often intertwined, the survey found strong partisan connections on some of the moral issues in the survey.
🟪 On abortion, notably, the survey found that 74 percent of Republicans — but only 24 percent of Democrats — found it to be morally wrong. The divide was almost as wide on the morality of homosexuality: Nearly six in 10, 59 percent, of Republicans said it is morally wrong, and 20 percent of Democrats.
🟪 On some other issues, the divide was narrower but still significant: Most Republicans, 65 percent, for example, condemn viewing pornography as wrong, but only 39 percent of Democrats. And almost half of Republicans, 48 percent, morally condemn doctor-assisted suicide, but only about a fourth of Democrats, 23 percent, do.
The survey did not ask questions about moral issues that Pew expected nearly all people would agree on, such as whether murder and stealing are wrong.
Although the published survey broke down numbers for many of the major religious and religious/ethnic groups, such as Protestants, white evangelicals and Hispanic Catholics, it did not provide numbers for tiny U.S. religious groups such as Buddhists nor denominational categories such as Southern Baptists and Latter-day Saints.