Subject: "On AIDS, 78% said:" Date: Published: 7/13/90 (154 lines) Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. Politics & Policy: Neither Left Nor Right Claims Voters' Hearts On Today's Burning Social and Cultural Issues ---- By Michel McQueen Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal WASHINGTON -- Neither liberals nor conservatives can claim to dominate the social and cultural issues that most stir American voters' emotions, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The poll on social issues found that most Americans these days seem generally tolerant on a wide range of issues, from sexuality to race. Meanwhile, those issues that do push voters' "hot buttons" don't seem to primarily favor either political party. "The story on social issues is fascinating because it reveals a country that is not ideologically aligned with the left or the right, but that has a fundamental sense of what should constitute public morality in 1990," say pollsters Peter Hart and Robert Teeter, who conducted the survey for the Journal and NBC. The poll, one of four special quarterly surveys the Journal and NBC conduct on various topics, found that some issues seem to represent part of a core set of beliefs or standards for Americans. When these are violated, more conservative attitudes seem to prevail. For example, 71% of voters surveyed favor the death penalty; 57% support a constitutional amendment to prohibit burning the flag; 54% favor restrictions on public funding for art that some people may deem obscene. But on issues involving health and welfare, or affecting privacy and personal rights, more liberal views seem to hold sway. A principal example is abortion. While 52% of those polled said they personally consider abortion to be wrong -- a figure that has remained constant in nearly a decade of surveys -- an even larger majority of 60% said abortion shouldn't be made illegal. When asked to choose which among three statements came closest to their own views, 57% said abortion should be left up to the woman and her doctor, 33% said it should be available only in cases of rape and incest, and 8% said it should be illegal in all circumstances. Americans turn more conservative, however, when the question of abortion rights is mixed with that of parental rights. By a margin of 75% to 21%, they support laws requiring that parents be notified before a girl under age 18 can have an abortion. Abortion .X{Ko4xw issue of great intensity at both ends of the spectrum. Yet the Journal/NBC poll also shows its divided political impact: Asked which party best deals with the issue, 27% of voters said Democrats, 20% said Republicans, and 35% said both or neither. Race relations present Americans with a different set of conflicts. Most voters see the nation making some strides: Asked whether blacks are better off than they were a decade ago, 69% of whites and 60% of blacks said yes. But on other issues, sharp racial divisions are evident. "When it comes to race, whites tend to see the glass as half full, blacks tend to see the glass as two-thirds empty," say Mr. Hart and Mr. Teeter. For example, 40% of whites, but only 20% of blacks, believe relations between their races are either good or very good; just over a quarter of the whites, but half of the blacks, say relations are fairly poor to poor. The black skepticism cuts across all age groups and is particularly pronounced among men. And while 76% of blacks believe they are discriminated against, only 29% of whites agree with them. On the other hand, whites as well as blacks solidly back affirmative-action plans in business, providing they contain "no rigid quotas." And only 15% of whites said they believe blacks are getting too much special treatment. While the poll found that whites have roughly the same views toward Asian-Americans and Hispanics as toward blacks, black voters' attitudes toward these other ethnic groups are more complex. While they tend to see Hispanics as discriminated against, they take a more critical view toward Asian-Americans, with 28% saying they receive too many special advantages. On a number of other social issues, the Journal/NBC poll found that Americans seem to share a number of broad attitudes that don't fit neatly into a liberal or conservative profile. In some cases, in fact, large majorities of voters took the same view despite stark differences in how they viewed themselves ideologically: For example, 73% of voters support banning the sale of so-called "assault" weapons and semiautomatic rifles. The figure was 86% among those the pollsters identified as social liberals; more surprisingly, even 61% of social conservatives agreed. Equally surprisingly, 58% of social liberals back the death penalty. (Black voters, however, are split down the middle on the question.) The proposal for a law requiring employers to give unpaid leave to new parents or those caring for sick relatives is another example of an issue that is popular across the board. Overall, 71% of voters in the poll favor the measure, and majorities support it in all categories. "When you find that even 52% of social conservatives favor parental leave, and 58% of social liberals favor the death penalty, you have a pretty good consensus," the pollsters say. Compared with other major issues, though, few voters volunteer the social issues when they are asked to name the most important matters facing the country. Few also give either political party a huge edge in addressing such issues. The result, Mr. Hart says, is that neither political party enters the next election with a clear advantage on the social-issues debate. Instead, the Journal/NBC poll suggests that many voters seem to be searching for a broadly tolerant middle ground. For example, 57% of those polled favor rating and restricting music containing obscenities, much as movies are rated and restricted now. Fewer than one in three voters would ban such music. On the question of AIDS, 78% said the federal government should continue to make research and treatment a top priority, rather than divert some of the resources to other diseases. Lost in the sometimes wrenching debates over social-policy questions in recent years is the fact that on many of these issues -- abortion, for one -- attitudes haven't shifted substantially in a decade or more. But the Journal/NBC poll found one area where views clearly have sharply changed: premarital sex. In a September 1978 Gallup poll, 50% of those polled said sex before marriage was wrong and 41% said it wasn't; in the new Journal/NBC poll, 60% don't object to premarital sex, while only 33% say it is wrong. But as some things change, some constants remain. Of those surveyed in the Journal/NBC poll, 60% say religion is extremely or very important in their lives. An even larger percentage, 69%, say religion is either as or more important to them than it was to their parents when they were growing up. --- Which party best represents your views on the following issues? DEMOCRATS REPUBLICANS BOTH NEITHER Abortion 27% 20% 17% 18% Family leave 34 15 12 10 Gun control 26 25 15 10 Death penalty 18 29 16 11 Passing a constitutional amendment on flag burning 23 29 26 11 The Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll [This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]