Almost 60 percent of likely voters surveyed say it's important for a president to believe in God and be deeply religious while also having the backing of most Americans on how he is managing the economy and foreign policy.
A new O'Leary Report/Zogby International Values Poll that looked at the political and ideological divisions in the nation showed significant support for personal religious involvement by the country's top leader.
Fifty-nine percent of those polled said having a president who is religious is more important to them than having one who is not religious, while 30 percent said the opposite.
In the poll's "red states," which were won by President Bush in 2000, the percentage is higher -- 67 percent -- who favor having a religious president who also is considered to have done a good job managing foreign policy and the economy. In those states -- covering the South, Southwest and mountain West -- 23 percent favored a president who is not religious but had success on policy issues.
In the "blue states," won by former Vice President Al Gore, the percentage in favor of a religious president was lower -- 51 percent. In those states -- the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic, the Great Lakes and the far West -- 36 percent favored a president who was successful on policy matters but not necessarily deeply religious.
"It is ultimately very important for a presidential candidate to identify with a supreme being and with what are perceived to be family and church values," said pollster John Zogby, whose Zogby International organization is based in Utica, N.Y.
He said that view is shaped by Americans' conservative or liberal tendencies, with born-again Christians viewing religion in absolute terms and mainline Protestants and liberal Catholics having a more live-and-let-live philosophy.
An earlier poll also suggested an American comfort with religious rhetoric from political leaders. A poll in July by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that almost twice as many respondents thought there were too few references to prayer and religious faith by politicians than too much. Forty-one percent said there was too little reference compared to 21 percent who thought there was more than enough.
But as interest in religion and the presidency continues, some people are voicing concern about it going too far. Officials of the Anti-Defamation League, worried about the increasing focus on faith in the presidential campaign, sent a letter to Bush and the nine candidates seeking the Democratic Party nomination.
"Candidates should feel comfortable explaining their religious convictions to voters," said Barbara Balser and Abraham Foxman, national chair and national director, respectively, of the Jewish organization. "However, we feel strongly that appealing to voters on the basis of religion is contrary to the American ideal and can be inherently divisive, wrongly suggesting that a candidate's religious beliefs should be a litmus test for public office."
The Zogby poll highlighted other views of likely voters regarding religious and moral issues.
For example, 62 percent of respondents agreed that "by removing prayer in school, by removing the words 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance, and fighting the display of the Ten Commandments or a nativity scene, we have eliminated our moral compass in daily decision-making." Thirty-four percent of likely voters polled disagreed with that idea.
"There's a fundamental agreement on the importance of God in the Pledge of Allegiance," said Zogby. "I don't think you're going to see any candidate stand up and say 'Take God out of the pledge' or that this nation doesn't identify with the Ten Commandments. That's sort of motherhood and apple pie."
Other findings by the pollsters include:
* 34 percent of likely voters said federal and state governments should recognize civil unions between people of the same sex who seek a state license granting them the legal benefits of marriage.
* 62 percent said governments only should recognize marriage between a man and a woman.
* 52 percent said abortion destroys a human life and is manslaughter.
* 36 percent said abortion doesn't destroy a life and is not manslaughter.
Zogby International interviewed 1,200 likely voters nationwide by telephone from Dec. 15-17. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.