March 23, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jim Tynen (919) 834-2099
James.Tynen@NCCivitas.org
Raleigh, N.C. – Four out of five North Carolina voters don’t object to prayers referring to Jesus being said to open meetings of a public body, a new poll by the John W. Pope Civitas Institute has found.
The latest skirmish over public prayer came earlier this month at the Rowan County Commission. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had asked commissioners to stop opening meetings with religion-specific prayers. At the March 2 meeting, however, Commissioner Jon Barber prayed in Jesus’ name, referred to “the salvation of Jesus Christ,” and declared the name of Jesus to be “the only way to eternal life.”
“It appears the people of North Carolina are much more tolerant than the ACLU when it comes to religious speech in the public square,” said Civitas Institute President Francis De Luca. “They don’t feel threatened or intimidated by words alone.”
Four out of the five Rowan commissioners reportedly contend that religion-specific prayer is acceptable because they themselves, not a member of the clergy, give the invocations.
“It might also be that North Carolinians respect elected officials’ own right to speak freely,” De Luca said. “In any event, whatever happens in this case, a strong majority of the people here accept mentions of Jesus at invocations to start governmental meetings.”
Full text of question:
Do you object to a member of an elected body or a citizen offering an opening prayer ending with the words, “In Jesus or Christ’s name” at a meeting of a government body?
19% Yes
79% No
2% Don’t Know/ Refused
The Civitas Poll is the only regular live-caller poll of critical issues facing North Carolina. For more information on Civitas polling see http://www.nccivitas.org/category/poll/.
For the full results and crosstabs, click here.
This poll of 600 likely 2012 general election voters in North Carolina was conducted February 27-28, 2012 by National Research, Inc. of Holmdel, NJ. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of likely 2012 general election voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters interviewed had to have voted in at least one of the past three general elections (2006, 2008, 2010) or be newly registered to vote since November 2, 2010.
The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4% of the “True Values.” True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in at least one of the past three general elections or is newly registered since November 2, 2010.
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It’s a good thing the Constitution was established to protect minority opinions, so that we are a Republic rather than a democracy ruled by the majority to the exclusion of minority opinions and beliefs. That’s why the Establishment Clause was put in the Constitution.
It’s also a good thing we have a 1st amendment to protect the rights of free speech.
Let’s get the social issues out of the debate for now. We lost the last election because of this . The majority has no right to abridge the rights of the individual. Rights are not given by God or the State, but are a fact of existence that man to achieve his desires requirers freedom to purser them.
Heavens, Frederick! So let’s see: if it was 99% you still would be worried about the 1% who took offense?
What about that freedom of expression clause, have you forgotten that too?
With only 19% taking objection to prayers so rendered–that doesn’t sound like anything to be worried about so far as losing elections goes on “social issues.” You sound a lot like Neal Boortz!