“I love my rights, but I’m not sure about yours”

The most recent annual poll by the First Amendment Center confirms that people really don’t know much about the US Constitution, and what they know they are ambiguous about, esp. when it applies to Those People Over There.  

On the plus side (to my mind; you can easily see them as minuses if you turn the numbers around):

1. Only 25% think “the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees” (vs. 49% in 2002, though up from 18% in 2006).
2. When probed about the rights in the Bill of Rights, 94% thought the right to assemble and petition was important or essential, 98% though speech was, 97% the right to practice the religion of your choice, 89% the right to practice no religion, 93% a free press, 75% the right to own firearms, 98% the right to privacy,  Note that the practical application of these rights is sometimes a bit sketchier, as the “minus” section below indicates.
3. 90% think Americans have either the right amount of religious freedom, or too little.
4. “Only” 34% think the press has “too much freedom.”  I’m putting this in the plus column because it’s the lowest response this way since the poll started in 1997.
5. 70% believed in journalist source confidentiality. 
6. 47% thought public school newspapers should be able to report on controversial issues without school approval.  That jumps to 61% for college papers.
7. 80% thought the Bible should  be allowed as a form of literature in English class (which the Supreme Court has repeatedly noted it  it can be).  This is up since 2000.  89% thought it was legitimate to use in a comparative religion class (ditto).
8. 59% oppose a flag burning amendment; while down from 2005, it’s still higher than it was back in 1997.
9. 69% thought any group should be allowed to hold a rally for a cause or issue, even if it might offend others in the community.

On the minus side:

1. Asked to name the five freedoms in the First Amendment, only 64% came up with speech, 19% with religion, 16% each for press and assembly, and 3% for petition.  Ah, blessed ignorance.  I hereby propose that, rather than the Pledge of Allegience, all school days start with a recitation of the First Amendment.
2. 42% think musicians should not be allowed to sing songs with lyrics others might find offensive (this has stayed fairly constant since 1997).  39% disagree that people should be allowed to say things in public that might offend religious groups (this number has trended downward, though, since 2000).  57%, though, would disallow folks saying things that might offend racial groups (though this number has also dropped over the last decade).  And 74% would prevent public school students from wearing a T-shirt with a slogan that might offend others — though I’ll bet that number would go down if some slogans were identified as “offensive.”  That’s the highest number polled to date.  Freedom of speech is great, as long as it’s *my* speech we’re talking about.
3. The right to privacy was considered essential by only 67%, vs. 81% in 2002 (the number basically shifted from “essential” to “important”).  An incremental chipping away …
4. 55% believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation.  Which is kind of weird, given that neither God nor Christ nor Christian appear anywhere in the Constitution.
5. Only 56% would believe the freedom to worship as one chooses extends to all religious groups, regardless of how extreme (down from 72% in 2000).  Part of the question may stem from what folks consider “extreme” or “fringe” (either in faith or in worship practices); this may be reflected by the 16% who declined to or were unable to answer the question, one of the highest in the survey.
6. 74% thought that some level of Christian traditions should be allowed in public schools in December.  43% thought that Nativity reenactments should be allowed; another 31% indicated that Christmas carols with a religious flavor should be allowed (but that religious music shouldn’t dominate).  18% thought December programs should be completely secular.  I put this one in this column because, while I think there’s a place in public schools to acknowledge music, even art, traditions from a religious background, it’s not, sadly, the place for a Nativity scene.
7. 58% think teachers and principals should be allowed to lead prayers in public schools. Amazing.  Can they lead the prayers of my choosing?  No?  Figures.
8. 50% think schools should be able to discipline students who post stuff on MySpace while off-campus that may be disruptive to school classes.  A great civics lesson there.
9. 58% of Americans would prevent protests during a funeral procession, even on public streets.  So preventing boorishness trumps liberty.  Got it.
10. 40% thought the government should require a specified amount of “positive news” be broadcast in order to grant licenses to public airwaves.  The media, for all it has the “right” amount of freedom, according to a previous item, sure takes a beating when it comes down to specific implied complaints.
11. 37% felt that the press should not be able to criticize the US military about strategy and effectiveness.  Yeesh.
12. 25% thought either government officials or broadcasters (vs. parents) had the primary responsibility for keeping inappropriate material away from kids; this number has more than doubled since 2004.  The number is still low, but still kind of appalling. 38% thought government content regulation should be extended to cable.  Because media brought into the house by choice needs to be censored.
13. 62% thought the government should require TV broadcaster to offer equal time to “conservative and liberal commentators.”  61% said the same about radio and newspapers.  I suspect this is another one that folks believe in without thinking of the implications — from deciding who is conservative and who is liberal, to figuring out when mostly-conservative talk radio is going to play those liberal commentators.

On the “huh” side:

1. 65% think the nation’s founders intended the U.S. to be a “Christian nation.”  That one’s hard to judge since you could make the argument in either direction.  In absolute terms, I’d be willing to argue it’s true — with the caveat that most social conservatives wouldn’t be all that thrilled with what the Founders thought a “Christian nation” would be.
2. 50% thought the Bible should be usable in public schools as a factual text for history or social studies.  I’m not altogether certain how people may have interpreted this (though the number is down since 2000), so I’m not sure what to think of this.
3. 71% of Americans would limit the amount a corporation or union could contribute to a political campaign,  64% would do the same for individuals, 62% would limit what a person could “contribute” to themselves for an election.  Those numbers are all up from 2000.  That’s either good or bad depending on how you feel about campaign finance reform (though I’d consider it dubious in the face of the First Amendment, which is why they surveyed about it).

So, in sum, Americans don’t know a lot, specifically, about their rights, but when reminded they think they are a good thing, especially for themselves, but not necessarily for others.  Yeah, that sounds about right.

The full survey is here.  The survey was held by phone with just over 1000 people, and claims to be +/- 3% or so accurate.  The demographics look pretty good, except that the racial blend looks skewed White.

(via Les)