Every election cycle, political candidates rush from house of worship to house of worship, hoping to curry favor with the faithful while demonstrating their religious convictions. Also every election cycle, religious leaders go to great lengths to make clear to parishioners who they should vote for.
I’ve heard plenty of arguments that this is the way most Americans want. On the one hand, people expect to see candidates in churches and temples. On the other, they like to receive guidance from spiritual leaders about the best candidates.
All of this, it turns out, is completely wrong.
Americans have a message for political candidates considering campaigning in their churches over the next year — butt out.
A new Fox 5-The Washington Times-Rasmussen Reports poll found less than one in four of those surveyed said it’s appropriate to campaign at their religious services, and a whopping 62 percent said it’s not right.
Another 70 percent said they don’t want their priest, minister, rabbi or Imam to “suggest” who to vote for, either.
“There are lines that people feel you shouldn’t cross. Different people might draw them at different places, but they clearly exist,” said Scott Rasmussen, who conducted the survey. He said that doesn’t mean voters don’t want candidates to show up and attend their services, but they also “don’t want to see a sermon or something presented as a sermon by a presidential candidate.”
This seems to have held up for several years. In 2004, a poll released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 65% of Americans oppose church endorsement of political candidates, 69% think it improper for political parties to ask congregations for their membership lists and 64% oppose the idea of Catholic bishops denying communion to politicians who fail to support church teachings on abortion and related issues.
Moreover, in 2002, 75% of Americans said churches should not come out in favor of one candidate over another. In 2001, the Pew Research Center found that 65% of Americans said they did not “think it is ever right for clergy to discuss political candidates or issues from the pulpit.”
This, however, had to be the most amusing part of the poll:
On the Republican side there also has been a contest to win the backing of religious conservative leaders, including former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s endorsement by televangelist Pat Robertson.
But the poll said that could hurt more than help — 29 percent said Mr. Robertson’s endorsement made them less likely to support Mr. Giuliani, while only 6 percent said they now are more likely to support him. That was consistent across all such demographic categories as age, party affiliation and income.
Apparently, appearing alongside a lunatic televangelist doesn’t carry quite the same electoral punch as the Giuliani campaign had hoped.