Effects of Political Orientation, Religious Identification and Religious Orientations on Attitude toward a Secular State

The debate concerning the secularism of the state always returns to the regulation of certain issues, such as same-sex marriage or embryonic stem cell research. In this study, we analysed the effects of political orientation, Catholic identity, and religious orientations (extrinsic, intrinsic, and quest) on the desire to have a secular state. Participants were 209 Italians who completed a questionnaire containing measures of the investigated constructs. The results showed that secularism of the state is negatively correlated with Catholic identity, extrinsic and intrinsic orientation, and rightwing political orientation, and is positively correlated with quest orientation. Moreover, the application of dominance analysis showed that intrinsic orientation dominates all other variables.