By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — Manhattan voters support plans for mosque near Ground Zero, though residents of the outer boroughs are opposed, a new poll found.
The Quinnipiac University poll, released Thursday morning, found that 46 percent of Manhattanites support the 13-story mosque and community center, called Cordoba House. Thirty-six percent of Manhattan voters oppose the proposal and 18 percent are undecided.
Still, New Yorkers as a whole weighed in against the mosque, with 52 percent opposing the plans and just 31 percent supporting the project. The strongest opposition came from Staten Island, where 73 percent opposed the mosque compared to 14 percent who supported it.
“Liberal Manhattan accepts the mosque and trusts Islam,” Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement. “Staten Island, where there's controversy about another proposed mosque, is more skeptical."
Carroll said Manhattan always polls more "true-blue Democrat" than the rest of the city, while opinions on Staten Island tend to align with the country as a whole.
"Manhattan tends to be much more easygoing, more liberal," Carroll said. "Manhattan is the secular humanist capital of the world."
The poll also delved into respondents’ attitude toward Islam.
Forty-four percent of New Yorkers said they had a generally favorable opinion of Islam, while 28 percent said they did not and another 28 percent were undecided. Those with a favorable opinion of Islam support the mosque 54 percent to 30 percent, while those with an unfavorable opinion oppose it 86 percent to 7 percent.
Fifty-six percent of the voters surveyed said they personally know a Muslim, and while that made them more likely to say Islam is a peaceful religion, they were still divided on the mosque, with 41 percent supporting it and 43 percent opposed.
The opposition to the mosque was similar across race and religious lines, with 66 percent of both Jews and white Catholics against the mosque, and 46 percent of white Protestants against it.
Sixty percent of Hispanic voters oppose the mosque, compared to just 45 percent of black voters. White voters fall in the middle, with 56 percent opposition.
Those who were surveyed were evenly split between saying the mosque would “foster understanding and teach people that not all Muslims are terrorists,” and saying the mosque “is an insult to the memory and families of 9/11 victims.”
Quinnipiac surveyed 1,183 city voters between June 21 and June 28. The poll has a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.
