Barack Obama’s pavlovian adherence to a progressive worldview has sparked an unexpected challenge to his reelection hopes: his administration’s “war” on the Catholic Church. Earlier this year, the Obama Administration, implementing ObamaCare, finalized regulations that would require all employers, including religious institutions, to provide free access to contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilizations. Under the rule, religious institutions would be required to provide these services, which went against their religious beliefs, to all their employees. And, they would have to absorb the full cost of these services. Breitbart News has access to a poll suggesting this plan is backfiring badly for the Obama Administration.
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 shocking 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 of adults. 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.
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