The Religious Landscape Study by the Pew Research Center a year ago showed the US growing less religious. Republicans consistently do well among voters with strong religious beliefs, and Democrats score better with younger people who self-identify as atheists or agnostics, as well as those who say their religion is ‘nothing in particular’. More than a third of millennials — 18 to 33 year-olds — have no religious affiliation.
The study. a 35,000-person sample, showed a 10 percent decline in self-identified Christians, though they still are more than 70 percent of the US population. At the same time, the religiously nonaffiliated, or “nones,” have increased by about one-third and now account for about 23 percent of American adults, a trend with political implications.
The number of evangelical Protestants, the core of the Republican base since Ronald Reagan, has held steady, but the number of Catholics has declined to about a quarter of the electorate. White Catholics vote are more likely to be Republican, and their non-white counterparts Democrats. (Pew Research)
I have no argument with religion if it makes people feel happy and secure and they don’t bother me or my friends. There are wonderful people among them, doing good, selfless things for other people, especially the poor and the sick. What is annoying is when they do bother others, forcing on the rest of us their views on homosexuality, abortion, the teaching of history, of evolution and global climate change, claiming that their views are the immutable word of god. To these people change of any sort, however fair, just and democratic, is a fundamental threat. These are insecure people and should be sympathized with; at the same time, however, they should get their tanks off my lawn.
Interestingly, black people remain notably more religious than whites, which is part of the reason why they are the last race in America in which a majority oppose gay marriage. This will cause conflict in an increasingly socially liberal Democratic party- between the rich white liberals that largely make up the party elites, and the party’s more socially conservative base. According to Pew, although blacks vote Democrat by a much bigger margin, they are less likely to describe themselves as ‘consistently liberal.’
On the other hand, Were the Republicans to embraced social liberalism, they could end up with an even bigger share of the white vote than they have already, as they would attract an increasing number of non religious whites who are rich and so probably fiscally conservative, but find the party’s pandering to Evangelical Christianity horrifying.