Washington, USA - Despite the recent terrorist bombings in London and renewed fears of another attack at home, people's opinions of Muslim-Americans are unchanged, according to a nationwide poll released this week by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Fifty-five percent of those polled said they had a favorable view of Muslim-Americans, just slightly higher than in similar surveys in 2003 and 2002. Twenty-five percent had an unfavorable opinion and 20 percent had no opinion.
There was a 2.5 percentage point margin of error in the poll of 2,000 adult Americans. Polling began July 7, the day of the first London bombings, and ended 10 days later before a second set of failed attacks on July 21.
Luis Lugo, director of the survey, said the large group expressing no opinion reflects that "there are still large swaths of people in the country who don't have a day-to-day experience with Muslims."
Lugo noted that despite the suicide bombings, fewer Americans say Islam encourages violence. While 44 percent of those polled in 2003 felt that way, only 36 percent did in the latest survey.