Fewer Americans think government should promote 'moral values'

June 27, 2006

(RNS) The number of Americans who believe the federal government should promote "moral values" has dropped significantly in the last 10 years, according to a recent Gallup poll.

In 1996, 60 percent of Americans thought the government should promote moral values, but that number fell to 48 percent in 2006.

"Moral values" are not defined in the poll. So-called "values voters" emerged after the 2004 elections when exit polls found that "moral values" ranked highest among voters' concerns.

The change appears to be a "fairly recent phenomenon," according the Gallup News Service. In September 2005, half of Americans said the government should promote "traditional values" and 47 percent said it should not favor any values.

Prior to that, there had been roughly a 10-point margin in favor of promoting "traditional values," according to Gallup.

More than 60 percent of conservatives and people who attend church weekly believe politicians should legislate morality or promote ideology. Sixty-six percent of liberals disagreed.

A separate Gallup poll found that a strong majority of Americans continue to support "right-to-die" laws for terminally ill patients. More than six in 10 support the idea of euthanasia or doctor-assisted suicide, according to the poll.

Seventy-one percent of Catholics said they support a doctor ending a patient's life by painless means, and 62 percent said they support doctor-assisted suicide. Fewer Protestants support the practices -- 61 and 50 percent, respectively.

Though support for euthanasia bumped up to 75 percent following the death of Terri Schiavo in 2005, approval has now settled down to 69 percent. That number has remained fairly constant since 1990, according to Gallup.

In addition, support for doctor-assisted suicide climbed to 64 percent in 2006 from 58 percent in 2005.

Finally, a third Gallup poll found that almost three-quarters of Americans say they've maintained the same religious preference during their entire lifetime. Of those that did change preferences, 40 percent said they did so because they disagreed with the teachings on their original religion.

Each of the three polls was conducted by telephone interviews of a national sample of 1,002 adults. The maximum sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

-- Daniel Burke