It’s Constitution Day — the 220th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment Center has released its annual “State of the First Amendment” report. As usual, it’s some scary stuff. You can download the report’s survey tables here (pdf) but here are a few choice bits unceremoniously swiped from Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report (the first three are direct quotes from the report, the rest are from Steve’s blog).

*Sixty-five percent of Americans believe that the nation’s founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation and 55% believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation, according to the “State of the First Amendment 2007? national survey released today by the First Amendment Center. […]



*Just 56% believe that the freedom to worship as one chooses extends to all religious groups, regardless of how extreme — down 16 points from 72% in 2000. […]

*25% said “the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees,” well below the 49% recorded in the 2002 survey that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, but up from 18% in 2006.

…

* Most Americans don’t know what’s in the First Amendment. There are five freedoms — freedom of speech was the only one named by a majority of respondents (64%), followed by religion (19%), press and assembly (each 16%), and petition (3%).

* Asked if newspapers “should be allowed to freely criticize the U.S military about its strategy and performance,” a combined 37% of Americans said they shouldn’t.

* Asked if musicians “should be allowed to sing songs with lyrics that others might find offensive,” a combined 42% of Americans said they shouldn’t.

* Asked if people “should be allowed to say things in public that might be offensive to religious groups,” a combined 39% of Americans said they shouldn’t.

* Asked if people “should be allowed to say things in public that might be offensive to racial groups,” a combined 56% of Americans said they shouldn’t.

* A jaw-dropping 55% of Americans agreed with the statement that the U.S. Constitution “establishes a Christian nation.” (For the record, the Constitution doesn’t mention God, Christianity, or the Bible at all. It’s an entirely secular document.)

* In one of the rare pieces of good news in the survey, a majority of Americans opposed a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning, 59% to 38%. As recently as 2000, the public leaned in the other direction, 51% to 48%.

Pretty scary stuff. As Steve points out, we have a lot of work to do.

x-posted at Candleblog.