Americans' Views of the Mormon Religion

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- Something about the Mormon religion apparently disturbs a significant portion of the American population. A quarter of Americans in a recent Gallup Poll said they would not vote for an otherwise well-qualified presidential candidate who is a Mormon. A Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 29% of Americans said they would be less likely to vote for a presidential candidate who is a Mormon.

These negative attitudes appear to be based on more than just concerns about the Mormon religion in a presidential context. New Gallup polling shows that 46% of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the Mormon religion in general, slightly higher than the 42% who have a favorable opinion.

All in all, would you say you have a -- [ROTATED: very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, (or) very unfavorable] -- opinion of the Mormon religion?

The accompanying table analyzes the breakdown of opinions about the Mormon religion among relevant subgroups of the American population.

Key findings:

• Americans who are more religious (as measured by frequency of church attendance) and those who are Protestant have highly negative views of the Mormon religion. The differences in views of Mormons among groups defined by their church attendance are significant. There is a net negative view of -21 points among Americans who attend church weekly, contrasted with a net positive view of +10 among those who seldom or never attend church.
  
  
• Protestants are significantly more negative in their views than Catholics, who are the most positive group by religion.
  
  
• There are minor partisan differences. Republicans are slightly more negative in their views of Mormons than are either independents or Democrats.
  
  
• There is a major difference by ideological group. Liberals are extremely negative in their views on a relative basis; 28% have favorable opinions and 61% unfavorable opinions. By contrast, conservatives are essentially evenly divided in their views, while moderates break to the positive side, with 48% favorable and 40% unfavorable opinions.
  
  
• Opinions of Mormons are better formed in the West, where the preponderance of Mormons live, and are slightly more positive than negative. Only 3% of those living in the West have no opinion whatever of Mormons.

Top-of-Mind Impressions of the Mormon Religion

To answer the question of what's behind these attitudes, Gallup asked Americans to say what comes to mind first when they think about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), also known as the Mormon church:

Next, we'd like you to think about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the Mormon church. What comes to mind when you think about this religion? [OPEN-ENDED]

Only 18% of Americans have no opinion or say nothing comes to mind about the Mormon religion. That fact, plus the specificity of the open-ended responses, underscores the idea that Americans appear to have at least some basic concepts or associations about the Mormon religion.

The top-of-mind impressions in general are widely varied, from the clearly neutral ("Salt Lake City") to the clearly positive ("good people/kind/caring/strong morals") to the clearly negative ("dislike their beliefs/don't agree with their doctrine/false teachings").

Of particular interest in the present context are the opinions of the 46% who have an unfavorable opinion of the Mormon religion, displayed in the far right-hand column of the previous table. The same data are grouped by category in the accompanying table.

Next, we'd like you to think about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. What comes to mind when you think about this religion? [OPEN-ENDED]

The two most frequently occurring categories of impressions of Mormons among those who have unfavorable opinions would appear to be the long-time association of the religion with polygamy (mentioned by 20% of those with unfavorable opinions) and top-of-mind impressions based on the Mormon religion's beliefs and doctrines. These responses suggest that the negative impression held by many may be a fairly straightforward result of disagreements on doctrine.

There are some mentions of the Mormon religion's secretive nature, but most of the rest of the impressions of those with an unfavorable opinion are actually either neutral or positive.

The next table uses the same categorization to group the responses of those who have favorable opinions of the Mormon religion:

Next, we'd like you to think about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. What comes to mind when you think about this religion? [OPEN-ENDED]

Even among this group of Americans who have favorable opinions, Gallup finds that polygamy is the most frequently mentioned single impression of the religion. Officially, the LDS church has outlawed polygamy since 1890, and those who practice it are excommunicated. But the historical connection of the Mormon church with polygamy, more recent highly publicized cases of polygamists in the news, and perhaps the HBO show "Big Love" have kept the connection fresh in people's minds.

Otherwise, these more positively inclined people talk about the positive lifestyles of Mormons, make some comments in a more positive vein about their religious doctrine, and also mention specific people, places, and things associated with the religion, in particular Salt Lake City and Utah. Six percent spontaneously mention Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Two percent mention the singing group The Osmonds.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,018 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Feb. 22-25, 2007. Respondents were randomly drawn from Gallup's nationally representative household panel, which was originally recruited through random selection methods. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.