While understanding religion and society through statistics we were presented with the Pew study that allows the access to a wide range of information. While reviewing the information I chose an emphasis initially on Illinois. While traveling and working throughout the United States building water parks, I had an opportunity to live in Burlington, Iowa for a month. While exploring the area I traveled across the Mississippi into Illinois. A short drive through farmland landed us at Nauvoo. This was the site of Mormon history. Because of my experience in this area I had a long-standing belief that Mormonism must be a commonality amongst a large population of individuals in Illinois. While looking at the Pew data it was discovered that my assumptions were unfounded. The statistics read that less than 1% of the population in Illinois is Mormon. This was shocking to me but while in class it was explained that the large population of Mormon individuals was such a long time ago and the population of Chicago, Illinois is so large and contains so many not native to Illinois that these factors are in play when reviewing the data.

Another aspect of the data in the Pew study in which I found interesting was the views on homosexuality. In instances such as Louisiana, 53% of individuals stated that they believe that homosexuality among adults should be accepted while only 42% stated that they are in favor of same-sex marriage among adults. This trend was also the case in states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Montana, California, New York, and Alabama. In fact, every state I had compared had these similarities of a higher percentage stating that homosexuality should be accepted over the amount stating that they believe in same-sex marriage. This is interesting because, in my opinion, this data depicts that individuals believe that they are okay with people in same-sex relationships if they do not get married.