Religious Freedom Waning Around the Globe

A new Pew Forum report finds religious restrictions worldwide are on the rise.

Pew found that between mid-2009 and mid-2010, religious restrictions increased in every major region of the world. Because of this increase, in 2010, 75 percent of people worldwide lived in countries that have either high government restrictions on religion or high social hostilities toward religion, up from 70 percent for the year ending in mid-2009.

Shockingly, Pew also found that on both of the study’s measures of religious freedom, government restrictions and social hostilities, the U.S. moved up more than one point on a 10-point scale. The result: The U.S. is now classified as having a moderate level of government restrictions on religion and is now at the high end of moderate hostility toward religion.