Survey on Religious Diversity in Marin County, California

December 2, 2002

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle

On December 2, 2002 The San Francisco Chronicle reported that "a recently released survey by San Francisco's Institute of Jewish and Community Research shows that a far higher percentage of people in Marin County [CA] than in the rest of the country embrace alternative religions or no religion at all. The findings, gathered from random telephone interviews of 604 people in April and May of 2000, do not mean the famously wealthy and liberal suburban county is full of barefoot pagans wearing robes and worshiping in the woods. But the study suggests the county would not be a bad place to start looking if one were trying to find people of that spiritual bent. More people in Marin -- 80 percent to 62 percent -- believe that "other religions" provide equally good paths to God, and 96 percent believe a person can be good without believing in God, compared with 74 percent elsewhere, the study says."