Religiously unaffiliated people more likely than those with a religion to lean left, accept homosexuality

Most people around the world identify with a religion or religious group. The rest, an estimated 16% of the global population in 2020, are religiously unaffiliated, meaning they identify as atheists, agnostics or describe their religion as “nothing in particular.”

In many countries, being religiously unaffiliated is linked to certain social and political views. For example, in some countries, religiously unaffiliated adults – a group also known as religious “nones” – are more likely to express accepting views of homosexuality, less likely to prefer traditional gender roles in marriages, and more likely to identify with the political left than are adults who identify with a religion, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey of 44 countries, 18 of which had samples of religiously unaffiliated adults that were large enough to be analyzed.

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