Mixing religion, politics troubles Americans, new poll indicates

Church & State, Feb 2001

A new poll of Americans' views on the role of religion in public life shows that most people are skeptical of infusing politics with religion.

The 'survey was conducted by Public Agenda, a New York City-based research organization, and released last month. In the area of religion and politics, 58 percent of respondents said it is wrong to vote on the basis of a candidate's religious affiliation. Thirty-seven percent said voters should consider a candidate's religious views, and the rest said they don't know.

Most Americans also oppose elected officials basing their votes on their personal religious beliefs. Fifty-seven percent of those polled said a deeply religious official should be willing to compromise on abortion. Similar majorities expected compromise on issues such as gay rights and the death penalty. Only 26 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to support a candidate who always votes on the basis of his religious beliefs.

Most Americans believe candidates who talk about religion frequently are just shilling for votes. Seventy-four percent told pollsters that when they hear candidates talking about their personal religious views, they believe this is just an effort to win votes.

The poll also asked people some indepth questions about prayer in public schools. The results show that very few Americans - a mere 6 percent - favor mandating that students recite a Christian prayer every day, the position held by most Religious Right groups. The majority of respondents - 53 percent - favor 4 daily moment of silence in schools. Twenty percent backed recitation of a non-sectarian prayer, while 19 percent said the schools should do nothing.

Even among self-identified evangelical Christians, support for school-sponsored Christian prayers was low, at 12 percent. Like the general population, 53 percent of evangelicals favored a moment of silence.

However, only 37 percent of the respondents believe that school prayer violates the Constitution. Jews and the non-religious were much more likely to see school prayer as a violation of church-state separation, with 78 percent and 72 percent respectively agreeing that it does.

The poll showed a split in opinion over issues related to "charitable choice." While most Americans approve of the idea of government giving tax money to religious groups to combat social ills, they disagree about how religious those programs should be. Forty-four percent said government should fund church-based social welfare projects even if they are religious. But 31 percent said this is a bad idea, and 23 percent said it is a good idea only if the programs avoid religious messages.

Summing up the survey's findings, Deborah Wadsworth, president of Public Agenda, remarked, "A majority of Americans recoil at the use of religion as a litmus test and have an almost instinctive wariness of injecting religion directly into politics or putting their own faith on a pedestal above others. On the other hand, they believe religion has enormous power to elevate people's behavior and address many societal problems."

For more information about the poll, visit Public Agenda's website at www.publicagenda.org.