From the Washington Times today:

A 70 percent majority

Seventy percent of Americans would have no objection to posting the Ten Commandments in government buildings, and 85 percent would approve if the Commandments are included as "one document among many historical documents" when displayed in public buildings, according to a survey conducted for the First Amendment Center. The State of the First Amendment survey, conducted since 1997, samples the American public's opinion each year on a variety of First Amendment issues. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday on two cases, from Kentucky and Texas, concerning Ten Commandments displays. In a case involving Kentucky courthouse displays, it said county officials crossed a constitutional line and were, in effect, endorsing religion even though other documents were added. But in the Texas case, the court approved an outdoor display where the commandments are part of a larger exhibit on the grounds of the Statehouse that recognized the history of the nation's legal system and religious heritage.

The full survey is available here (the 10 Commandments questions are at pages 10-11).

Overall, if the divisiveness of religious displays is the test, this doesn't seem very divisive to me, especially when compared to much political rhetoric. Nor does this survey evidence bear out the assumption that the "greater diversity" of American religious belief today makes these displays more divisive or controversial than traditionally. And one suspects that if the survey results were broken down by geographic region, it would be even less divisive in many red states. Having lived in red states most of my adult life (unlike most members of the Court, I suspect), I can tell you from personal experience that these sorts of displays simply are not controversial or divisive in any meaningful way, especially when compared to other elements of the public dialogue.

So while America's legal and intellectual class seem to believe that public religious displays are unusually divisive or offensive in modern America, there seems to be little evidence to support that view. Indeed, I would be hard-pressed to come up with any other proposition in the public debate today (tax cuts, social security reform, war, etc.) that would meet with public approval of 85% of the public that they would "strongly" or "mildly" agree that a public official could take a particular action.

My personal view is that the Court should probably just scrap any further discussion of the purported divisiveness of religious displays and stick to law, rather than second-rate sociology. I don't see that it really adds much to the analysis in the first place, so not that much would be lost and perhaps some intellectual integrity would be gained. The divisiveness inquiry is utterly intellectually vacuous, unsupported by any serious social science evidence of which I am aware, and for most of the country, by common, everyday experience. Indeed, as Eugene has noted, it is quite probable that the Court's efforts to try to police the proper boundary lines of divisiveness probably has created more divisiveness on religious issues than it has solved. On the other hand, if the Court (and academics and commentators) want to stick with the argument that religious displays are unusually "divisive" relative to other elements of public discourse,they should actually come up with some empirical evidence to back it up, rather than pretending that it is anything more than their personal bias and experience.