Most U.S. residents disagree with Liberals, Conservatives approaches to religion in public forum

Most people living in the U.S. disagree with the way liberals and Christian conservatives approach religious issues in the public forum -- including topics such as abortion and human embryonic stem cell research -- according to a recently released national survey on politics and religion, the Los Angeles Times reports.

For the survey -- which was released last week -- nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based research groups Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and Pew Research Center conducted telephone interviews among 2,003 adults from July 6 through July 19.

The survey has a sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points (Kang, Los Angeles Times, 9/2).

According to the survey, 69% of respondents say that liberals have gone "too far in keeping religion out of schools and government," and 49% "express reservations about attempts by Christian conservatives to impose their religious values" on the public (Pew Research Center, "Many Americans Uneasy With Mix of Religion and Politics," 8/24).

The survey also finds that 59% of participants who attend religious services at least once monthly say their religious leaders discuss issues such as abortion.

The survey finds that 56% of people living in the U.S. are in favor of embryonic stem cell research, compared with 32% who oppose the research based on the belief that it destroys potential human life.

According to the Times, the new Pew survey is the first to find that more white Christian conservatives -- 44% -- support human embryonic stem cell research than the 40% who oppose it.

When asked whether the Bible or voters' opinions should have more influence over the nation's law, 63% responded that voters' opinions should be most influential, compared with 32% who favored the Bible.

John Green, a senior fellow at PFRPL who worked on the survey, said the findings show that U.S. residents are "particularly irritated" by the idea of removing religion from the public arena.

"On the other hand, while they might agree that there should be more religion in the public square, they don't agree with the religious right. That particular solution is not the one they had in mind," Green added (Los Angeles Times, 9/2).