
Religious informationPart 1 of 2Prejudice of U.S. adults
towards
Mormons and Evangelicals:
The Gallup News Service reported their findings on their
survey of American adult's views on "the Mormon religion," as conducted on
2007-FEB-22 to 25. This term would probably be interpreted by most Americans as
referring to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
centered in Salt Lake City, UT. It is by far the largest denomination among the
approximately 100 faith groups in the LDS Restorationist movement. The survey
may have been prompted by Mitt Romney, a Republican Mormon, who ran unsuccessfully for the
presidency in 2008. Some of their findings:  |
46% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the Mormon
religion; 42% have a favorable opinion. (9% very favorable, 33% somewhat
favorable, 30% somewhat unfavorable, 16% very unfavorable, 11% no opinion.)
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Residents in the East, Republicans, political liberals,
Protestants, and frequent church attendees tended to have the most negative
view of the Mormons.
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The four most common thoughts that come to mind when people
consider Mormons were:
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Polygamy
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Salt Lake City, or Utah
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Good people / kind / caring / strong morals
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Dislike their beliefs / don't agree with their
doctrines / false teachings.
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Among those less likely to vote for a Mormon, 60% said that
there is no chance they would do so.
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Number of samples: 1,018; margin of error ~+mn~4%
1 
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A Washington Post/ABC News
poll released on 2007-FEB-27 found that 29% of Americans said they would be less
likely to vote for a presidential candidate who is a Mormon. 4% would be more
likely, and 66% said it would not matter. The four main reasons given were:
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39% disagree with / uncomfortable with / dislike Mormonism
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12% don't know enough about Mormons
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11% worry about the influence of the Mormon church.
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7% Mormons are not true Christians
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6% multiple wives / polygamy
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Polygyny -- the practice of one man marrying multiple wives --
is today found only within very small fundamentalist Mormon denominations,
notably The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints (FLDS). The main Mormon denomination, The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints prohibited polygyny as a result of what they believe to
have been a command by God in
1890 CE. They currently excommunicate any member who practices plural marriage. A curious finding is that 21% of the American people would also be
less likely to vote for a candidate who smokes cigarettes. On a positive note,
those bigoted against women (14%) are neatly balanced by those
who are bigoted for women (14%). Those racially biased against
blacks (7%) are almost completely balanced by those biased for blacks
(6%). Number of samples: 1,082; margin of error ~+mn~3%.
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Attitudes towards Evangelical Christians by college &
university professors:Gary A. Tobin is the director and chief pollster of the
Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco CA. He and Aryeh
K. Weinberg, polled
professors at public and private, secular and religious, two and four-year
colleges across the U.S. about their attitudes towards various religious groups.
Ratings ranged from warm or favorable to very cool or unfavorable. Tobin and
Weinberg write:
"When we ask questions like this, we're asking the
respondent to say how they feel about an entire group of people, and
whatever image they have of that entire group comes through. There is no
question this is revealing bias and prejudice."
The study was mainly geared to assess the degree of
anti-semitism at colleges. They found that professors expressed positive feelings
towards Buddhists, Jews, Roman Catholics and most other religious groups. Some
of his findings:
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Almost half (48%) of faculty regard themselves as political
liberals; this compares with 22% of the general population.
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The percentage of faculty with warm or favorable feelings
towards Jews is 73%, Buddhists 68%, Roman Catholics 64%, non-evangelical
Christians 62%, people of no religion 50%, and Atheists 41%. Faculty of the
various religions were excluded from rating their own group.
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33% of faculty have negative feelings about Mormons -- the
second highest of any faith group.
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Concerning evangelical Christians:
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71% agree or agree strongly "...that evangelical Christians
should keep their religious beliefs out of American politics."
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Only 30% of faculty feel warm/favorably about evangelical
Christians with only 11% feeling very warm/favorable. This is the lowest of
any religious group. 53% are cool/unfavorable. "These negative feelings
are noted across academic disciplines and demographic factors."
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Among social science faculty, 57% have a negative view of
evangelicals.
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Among faculty in the humanities, 54% have a negative view.
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It is notable that only 11% of college and university
faculty are evangelicals; this compares with 33% in the general public.
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89% of evangelical faculty consider religion to be very
important in their life. This compares to 53% for Roman Catholics and 38%
for non-evangelical Christian faculty memberss.
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N = 1,200; margin of error = ~+mn~3 percentage points. 

References used:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above
essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
-
Frank Newport, "Americans' Views of the Mormon Religion: Most frequent
top-of-mind impression of Mormons is polygamy," The Gallup Poll®,
2007-MAR-02, at:
http://www.galluppoll.com/ This may be a temporary listing.
-
"Washington Post-ABC News Poll," 2007-FEB-27, at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Copyright © 2007 to 2015 by Ontario Consultants on
Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 2007-FEB
Latest update: 2015-DEC-30
Author: B.A. Robinson

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