
The Knights of Columbus, a social organization of Catholics, recently commissioned a nation-wide poll to gauge support for the Obama Administration's view. The poll, conducted by the respected Marist polling firm, interviewed 1,600 adults between May 10-14. In a shock result, 74% of adults said that freedom of religion should take precedence over government laws. A solid majority of adults all felt that religious providers should be able to opt out of providing abortions, contraceptives or sterilizations. The poll should send shudders through the Obama campaign.
Since I have the polling portfolio at Breitbart, I want to stress that this was a poll ofadults. As I've written recently, polls of adults give Dem positions a net 7-point bias. Furthermore, the partisan make-up of the poll assumes a lower turnout for the GOP than 2008. In other words, the poll was skewed towards the Democrat position. Even then, the results are devastating to the Obama Administration. A more realistic voter, partisan screen would have revealed how deeply unpopular Obama's positions are.
Interestingly, the one demographic group that felt most strongly that religious freedom should trump government law was women.
We'll have more to say about this poll over the next few days. In the meantime, the full results are below. I understand that coastal elites like to pretend that their views are the more sophisticated, but to many actual voters their views are built on real, concrete beliefs.