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Survey Shows Support For Religion In the Public Arena

By Howard Friedman

Last week, Ellison Research released a poll of 1,007 American adults on church-state issues. Here is an excerpt from the release summarizing the results of the poll which asked respondents whether various practices should be legal:

• 90% feel the law should support religious groups renting public property ... for meetings if non-religious groups are allowed to do so.


• 89% say it should be legal for a public school teacher to permit a ?moment of silence? for prayer or contemplation for all students during class time.


• 88% believe it should be legal for public school teachers to wear religious symbols ... during class time.


• 87% say voluntary student-led prayers at public school events ... should be legal.


• 83% believe the display of a nativity scene on city property ... should be legal.


• 79% say it should be legal to display a copy of the Ten Commandments inside a court building.

  Out of nine such scenarios presented to people in the study, only three do not show this level of unified thought:



• 60% believe the display of a scene honoring Islam on city property, such as a city hall, during Ramadan ... should be legal (even though 83% thought a nativity display should be legal).


• 52% believe it should be legal for a religious club in a high school or university to determine for itself who can be in their membership, even if certain types of people are excluded.


• 33% say it should be legal for a landlord to refuse to rent an apartment to a homosexual couple.

Baptist Press yesterday discussed the poll results more extensively.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on January 16, 2008 (boomark / email).