Opinions are diverse on 'those Mormons'

Americans identify polygamy with the LDS Church more than anything else, including Donny and Marie.

And, a new Gallup poll released Friday shows, 46 percent of the nation has an unfavorable opinion of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, compared to 42 percent who have a favorable opinion.

"Something about the Mormon religion apparently disturbs a significant portion of the American population," according to the Gallup News Service.

But scholars and political scientists say the results shouldn't concern Mormons, who belong to one of the fastest-growing religions in America.

"I don't think it's anything to get too excited about because it's not that bad," said Rodney Stark, Baylor University professor of social sciences. "A whole lot of Americans have never met a Mormon."

The nationwide Gallup telephone survey of 1,018 adults, conducted Feb. 22-25, shows the negative attitudes appear to be based on more than just concerns about the Utah-based religion in a presidential context. The poll, which can be found at galluppoll.com, has a 4 percent margin of error.

Gallup earlier surveyed voters about a Mormon, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, running for president. It showed a quarter of the country would not vote for an otherwise well-qualified presidential candidate who is LDS. A Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 29 percent would not vote for a Mormon hopeful.

The new poll broke out the results by region, political party, ideology, church attendance and religion. Findings include:

• Americans who attend church have highly negative views of the Latter-day Saint religion.

• Protestants have a significantly more negative impression than Catholics, the most positive group by religion.

• Republicans are slightly more negative in their views than Democrats and independents.

• Liberals are extremely negative in their views, while conservatives and moderates are about evenly divided.

• Opinions about Mormons are better formed in the West, where the preponderance of Mormons live.

Attitudes changing

LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter issued a brief statement Friday afternoon in response to the poll.

"Many religions in the world are not well understood, and we believe that the survey reflects the fact that many people know little or nothing about the doctrine, teachings and values of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," he said.

Stark, a religion scholar, said the results aren't as negative as they would have been 30 years ago. "I think people's attitudes have become much less hostile," he said.

Jan Shipps, emeritus professor of history and religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University, said the poll results aren't shocking.