A poll has revealed that more than 50% of British Muslims believe homosexuality should be illegal.
The survey, conducted by public opinion research group ICM, asked 1,081 Muslims and a control group of 1,008 non-Muslims a series of questions for an upcoming Channel 4 programme titled ‘What Muslims really think’.
Questions ranged from feelings about other religious groups to attitudes about the state of British society.
When respondents were asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed that homosexuality should be legal in Britain, 18% said they agreed and 52% said they disagreed, compared with 5% among the control group who disagreed.
Forty-seven percent (47%) said they did not agree that it was acceptable for a gay person to become a teacher, compared with 14% of the general population.
Eighty-eight percent (88%) said Britain was a good place for Muslims to live in, with 78% saying they would like to integrate into British life on most things apart from Islamic schooling and some laws. On the subject of terrorism, 1% said they completely sympathised and 3% said they sympathised to some extent with suicide bombers. Four percent (4%) said they sympathised with people who committed terrorist actions as a form of political protest generally.
The programme is presented by Trevor Phillips, former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. “On specific issues – families, sexuality, gender, attitudes towards Jews and on questions of violence and terrorism – the centre of gravity of British Muslim opinion is some distance away from the centre of gravity of everyone else’s opinion,” Philips told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
‘What Muslims Really Think’ will be broadcast on Channel 4 at 10pm on Wednesday 13th April 2016.
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