Of one voice? Mormon attitudes toward the religion clauses of the First Amendment

Abstract

Scope and Method of Study: The current study examines the attitudes of practicing Mormons toward the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses. Snowball sampling produced 123 usable surveys, consisting mainly of likert-scale items. Statistical methods employed include factor analysis, cluster analysis, comparison of proportions, and regression analysis.

Findings and Conclusions: The attitudes of the Mormon participants differed significantly from the findings of an earlier study conducted in Washington, D.C. Participants in the current study were more likely to favor protection of free exercise rights for minority religious groups and were somewhat more likely to favor the presence of religion in the public sphere. There was little variance of attitude within the sample, with respondents clustering quite substantially into a single group. The Mormon participants largely fell into the Religious Nonpreferentialist category of a Church-State Typology previously explored by Jelen and Wilcox (1997, 1995). While the results of this study cannot be generalized to the broad Mormon population due to the use of snowball sampling, these results do suggest that further studies into the homogeneity of Mormon attitudes are warranted.