Religious Fundamentalism, Right-Wing Authoritarianism, and Hostility Toward Homosexuals in Non-Christian Religious Groups

In this article, I extend the work of Altemeyer and Hunsberger (1992) on religious fundamentalism to several non-Christian groups. The psychometric properties of the Religious Fundamentalism scale remained strong among small, self-selected samples of adults from Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish backgrounds. Also, as in past research with persons from Christian backgrounds, correlations from .42 to .74 emerged among scores on the Religious Fundamentalism, Right-Wing Authoritarianism, and Attitudes Toward Homosexuals scales (Altemayer and Hunsberger, 1992). That is, the religious fundamentalists within each of four religious groups tended to be authoritarian and to have hostile attitudes toward homosexuals. Within the limitations of the present samples, the findings provide initial evidence that fundamentalists in many religions may tend to be authoritarian and hostile toward homosexuals, that religious fundamentalism may consist of essentially the same attitudes in these four major religious groups, and can be measured with some efficiency with the Religious Fundamentalism scale.