A majority of Americans side with Little Sisters of the Poor on the contraceptive mandate issue, and say that the nuns were treated "unfairly" by the federal government, according to a Marist Poll survey.
The US Supreme Court is hearing the arguments of both the US Department of Health and Human Services and from the Little Sisters to decide if the Catholic charity needs to comply with mandate, or if they can be simply exempted.
A majority of 53 percent adults in the survey said that birth control mandate accommodation currently provided to the charity was "unfair," while another 32 percent thought it was "fair."
Little Sisters is leading in public support by a 21-point margin as per the poll, in which 1,020 Americans were surveyed over telephone between April 8 and 12.
The result also showed a marked difference of opinion between Republican supporters and Democratic-leaning respondents. While 63 percent of Republicans thought that the process required by government is unfair to the nuns, only 44 percent of Democrats said so.
Among the genders, both men and women appeared to have similar views, with 53 percent men and 52 percent women finding the contraceptive mandate requirement unfair.
The charity feels that this requirement makes them complacent in the act of distributing the drugs, which is against their deeply held beliefs.
After about one week from the first hearing of the case in Supreme Court on March 23, the court asked both sides to submit additional filings to propose a provision of health care plan that will not involve Little Sisters. The first round of briefs were filed on April 12, and the next one is expected to be filed April 20.
"It is not reasonable for the government to demand that some - and only some - religious employers engage in activity that is totally unnecessary to the government's stated purpose of providing elective and morally problematic drugs to employees," Carl Anderson of Knights of Columbus, which sponsored the survey, said in a statement.
"Such action doesn't just violate the rights of employers like the Little Sisters, it is also at odds with the American people's understanding of basic fairness and our long-standing commitment to protecting the deeply-held beliefs of every American - especially when those beliefs are the minority view."
