Americans give poor marks to the state of our moral union

(RNS) As President Obama prepares to assess the state of the union,
three out of four Americans grade the country's moral climate at a "C"
or below, according to a new poll released on Thursday (Jan. 20).


The PRRI/RNS Religion News Poll found that Americans cite partisan
noise from cable, talk radio, blogs and the Tea Party as the main
stumbling blocks to working across partisan lines.


At the same time, two-thirds of Americans say the nation's harsh
political rhetoric bears little or no responsibility for the shooting
spree in Tucson, Ariz., that killed six and left a Democratic
congresswoman gravely injured.


And despite popular assumptions that faith can fuel bitter
polarization between Americans, just one in seven respondents say
religious leaders from the left or right are major obstacle to changing
the tone in Washington.


"People are distinguishing between the political extremes and
religious extremes, and they see the problem with politics, not
necessarily with religion," said James Calvin Davis, religion professor
at Middlebury College and author of "In Defense of Civility: How
Religion Can Unite America on Seven Moral Issues that Divide Us."


The poll was conducted by Public Religion Research Institute in
partnership with Religion News Service.


According to the poll, white evangelicals (who generally identify
with the GOP) fault liberal bloggers and cable commentators, while
minority Christians (who tend to favor Democrats) blame the Tea Party
and conservative talk radio.


People tend to see themselves and others like them -- politically,
religiously or otherwise -- as part of the solution, not part of the
problem, Davis said.


In contrast, white mainline Protestants rate both liberal bloggers
and the Tea Party as equally obstructive to bipartisanship and "changing
the tone in Washington."


Other findings include:


-- Americans over 65 (46 percent) are more likely than adults under
35 (25 percent) to grade the country's moral climate with a "D" or an
"F." A plurality of Americans (38 percent) give the nation's moral
climate a "C."


-- Catholics (31 percent) and white evangelicals (27 percent) are
most likely to say the moral climate in the U.S. is superior to other
countries, compared to only 14 percent of the religiously unaffiliated.


-- Among all Americans, cable news commentators (17 percent) are
considered the biggest obstacle to bipartisanship and civility, followed
by the Tea Party (15 percent), liberal bloggers (13 percent),
conservative talk radio (12 percent), conservative religious leaders (8
percent) and progressive religious leaders (6 percent).


-- Tea Party members (34 percent) and Republicans (24 percent) are
most likely to view liberal bloggers as the biggest obstacle, while
Democrats blame the Tea Party (26 percent) and conservative talk radio
(17 percent).


-- There's also a stark racial divide on bipartisanship: nearly a
quarter of white evangelicals say liberal bloggers are the biggest
obstacle, while one in five minority Christians fault the Tea Party.


-- Nearly two-thirds of Tea Party members dismiss the charge that
violent and anti-government political rhetoric contributed to the
shooting of Arizona Democrat Gabrielle Giffords; more than seven in 10
Democrats, and 55 percent of minority Christians, say it did play a
role.


The poll found that half of Americans rate the country's moral
climate as the same as other industrialized nations; 22 percent thought
it was better, and 24 percent thought it was worse.


The perception that America is more religious than other nations --
particularly in Western Europe -- may explain why respondents view
America's moral climate as superior to others, despite giving it
generally poor grades.


"The same people who might consider the moral state of the nation to
be not so great are also not necessarily going to be fans of the more
secularized ethos of other industrialized nations," Davis said.


Davis said America's political rhetoric isn't necessarily worse than
ever before -- just louder.


"We should be careful not to long for an earlier day when things
were more civil," he concluded. "Incivility is a deep-seated American
tradition. ... It's just that the incivility is arguably more rampant
these days because we have ... these megaphones that allow the uncivil
voices in our culture to be even louder."


The PRRI/RNS Religion News Poll was based on telephone interviews of
1,006 U.S. adults between Jan. 13 and 16. The poll has a margin of error
of plus or minus 3 percentage points.