Most Americans believe gays and lesbians face the most discrimination in the U.S., followed closely by Muslims, blacks, and Hispanics, according to a new Pew study. But weird things start happening when you look at, say, how conservative Caucasian proselytizing Protestants feel.

Ah, white evangelicals. Still the cream of the crop in America, yes? No! White evangelicals were more likely to consider themselves a religious minority than blacks or Hispanics of any faith, according to Pew's Monday poll:

Among religious groups, fully half of white evangelical Protestants (50%) say evangelical Christians face a lot of discrimination compared with 31% of the public overall saying this...

[E]vangelicals are less sanguine about their position in American society, with one-third (34%) saying it has become more difficult to be an evangelical Christian in the U.S. Consistent with this, three-in-ten white evangelical Protestants say they think of themselves as a religious minority because of their religious beliefs.

Even better, white evangelicals as a group believe there is more discrimination against white evangelicals than against Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, atheists, or Catholics, and they say they face about the same amount of discrimination as lesbians and gays:

Nearly half of white evangelicals also believe the Democratic Party is "unfriendly" toward religion. No more than a quarter of any other group agrees with them. Fifty-seven percent of white evangelicals also say President Obama is unfriendly toward religion. That's 21 percentage points higher than the next-highest group.

Seventy percent of white evangelicals also identified as Republicans in the poll—the highest total since Pew started its tally in 1992—and only 20 percent identified as Democrats, an all-time low.

As the Daily Banter put it, "This is the white evangelical persecution complex quantified."

[Photo credit: AP Images]