Random Variable

The Guardian reports that The Gallup Coexist Index 2009 finds that exactly 0% of British Muslims tolerate homosexuals, compared with 19% of German Muslims and 35% of French Muslims.

Now, before everyone goes all Geert Wilders, some problems.

Given that migrants to France, Germany and the UK come from specific ethnic groups, are we missing some correlation between ethnicity and religion? Have we got some true control variables, rather than just asking non-Muslims.

Also, seems like British Muslims are doing pretty badly economically, with the second lowest unemployment, and very low expectations of social mobility:

I wonder how well non-Muslim groups in a similarly dire economic position would fare on moral questions.

In addition, perhaps British immigrant groups are secularising faster than their continental counterparts, especially if they are actually LGBT.

If I had the data, it’d be interesting to see if you could run it through some sort of multivariate analysis and see if other variables correlate higher on moral issues than others.

Over at Liberal Conspiracy, Martin Robbins has a post on a more smeary opinion poll about Muslims eeking out of the ironically titled Centre for Social Cohesion.

As Global Voices Online reports:

Japundit links to a news story where visiting Japanese Miss Universe Riyo Mori was given a cold reception by protesters in West Java, Indonesia. The protesters are a part of a hardline Islamic group that opposes the exploitation of beauty.

There’s no mention in the news reports that are linked to as to whether or not the protestors are predominantly male or female (as in, should we understand the protests as a campaign to keep women inside a religious, patriarchal moralism, or should it be seen as a women’s piety movement for women?)
Besides, since when did opposing the exploitation of beauty become a hardline thing? Did I miss a meeting?