Do Voters Agree With Obama’s Comparison of Islam and Christianity?
President Obama has drawn sharp criticism for comments he made during last Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast equating atrocities by the radical Islamic group ISIS with past sins of Christianity, but a plurality of American voters agree with his sentiments.
The president in his speech said that the use of religion to justify violence and killings “is not unique to one group or one religion” and cited the Crusades and slavery as examples of terrible deeds done “in the name of Christ.” A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters agree with the president’s statements, but 41% disagree. Twelve percent (12%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
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The national survey of 800 Likely Voters was conducted on February 6-7, 2015 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.