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Prior research has shown that individuals living in Southern areas express significantly less tolerant attitudes than the rest of the nation, while individuals residing in urban areas express significantly more tolerant attitudes than their rural peers. We seek to explain these generally unspecified Southern and urban effects by identifying demographic contextual factors that affect individuals' tolerance levels. Using 1976 General Social Survey and 1990 Census data, we find that net of individual factors, residing in an area with a larger proportion of college graduates significantly increases individual levels of tolerance, while residing in an area with a larger proportion of evangelical Protestants significantly decreases tolerance. We also find that the Southern and urban effects on tolerance become non-significant once contextual-level controls are added.

Teen birth rates vary widely across counties in the United States. In this study, we examine whether the religious composition of a county is correlated with the rate of teen childbearing using both a traditional moral communities approach and a “decomposed” version of that framework. Utilizing 2000 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States Census Bureau, and the Religious Congregation and Membership Survey, we find that the total percentage of religious adherents in a county is not significantly correlated with the teen birth rate. However, when we decompose the Christian population into major denominational groupings, we find the percentage of evangelical Protestants in a county is positively associated with the teen birth rate while the percentage of Catholics is negatively associated with teen childbearing. Possible explanations for the association between religious context and teen birth rates are discussed, as well as their policy and research implications.

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Americans' acceptance of same‐sex sexual relations and their willingness to restrict the civil liberties of sexual minorities vary substantially across both time and place even as overall trends have been towards more liberalizing stances. Yet few quantitative studies have explored both the individual and contextual religious factors shaping Americans' views and none have applied such an analysis to examining attitudes over time. Using hierarchical ordered logistic modeling and time‐year interactions with 1973–2016 General Social Survey data, we examine whether the religious characteristics of residents and the contexts in which they reside moderated Americans' liberalizing attitudes over time. We find that more religiously engaged people, those who belonged to evangelical and Black protestant faiths, as well as those living in areas with higher overall levels of religious attendance changed their moral perspective about same‐sex relations at a lesser rate over time. However, we do not find similar moderating influences of religious factors for explaining Americans' willingness to restrict the civil liberties of individuals identifying as homosexual. We frame these findings relative to the morality and equality discourses permeating the culture and the concerted efforts of the Christian Right to influence public opinion and policy since the 1970s.