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LOS ANGELES, Calif. — A majority of Americans believe that religious values are “under attack,” and that Hollywood insiders do not share the religious and moral values of most Americans, according to a survey from the Anti-Defamation League.
The ADL-commissioned poll found that 61 percent of the American people continue to believe that religious values in this country are “under attack,” while 59 percent of Americans agree that “the people who run the TV networks and the major movie studios do not share the religious and moral values of most Americans.”
The national poll, “American Attitudes on Religion, Moral Values and Hollywood,” was released Nov. 14 during the League’s 2008 Annual Meeting in Los Angeles. Conducted by The Marttila Communications Group, it surveyed 1,000 American adults in October.
“These findings point to the challenges that we face in dealing with issues of religion in society,” Abraham H. Foxman, ADL’s national director, said in a news release. “The belief that religion is under attack underlies the drive to incorporate more religion into American public life. Disturbingly, 43 percent of Americans believe there is an organized campaign by Hollywood and the national media to weaken the influence of religious values in this country.”
Other findings of the ADL survey, included:
• Forty-three percent hold the view that Hollywood and the national media are waging an organized campaign to “weaken the influence of religious values in this country.”
• Significantly fewer Americans believe today that Jews control the TV and film industries. The survey showed that 63 percent disagree with the notion that “the movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews,” while only 22 percent agree. When ADL conducted its first survey on anti-Semitic attitudes in 1964, nearly half of all Americans believed that the television and film industries were run by Jews.
• There is surprising support for censorship. Nearly 40 percent of the American people support the notion that “dangerous ideas should be banned from public school libraries,” and nearly the same number of Americans disagree with the statement that “censoring books is an old-fashioned idea.”
• Nearly half of those surveyed—49 percent—believe that the United States is becoming “too tolerant in its acceptance of different ideas and lifestyles;” 47 percent disagreed with that statement.
“It is troubling that so many Americans feel as if the output of Hollywood is part of an organized campaign to undermine religious values in this country and believe that censorship is acceptable,” Foxman said.
The survey was conducted by the Marttila Communications Group, a Boston-based public opinion research firm that has conducted numerous national surveys for ADL, measuring American attitudes on a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues.
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
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