Is The U.S. A Religious Nation ?

There is a fairly significant portion of the American electorate that claims America is a christian nation. They tell us that this country was founded as a christian nation and remains so today, and because of this they want to force all Americans to abide by their beliefs by passing laws requiring that.

The first part, that America was founded as a christian nation, is easily disproved. Not only does the Constitution guarantee freedom of religion (which encompasses all beliefs, and not just christianity), but a treaty ratified by the U.S. Senate in the early 1800s (only a few years after the nation was founded) verifies that the United States is a secular nation.

That leaves the second assertion -- that the United States is today a religious nation (i.e., a christian nation). Is that really true? Not so much. A recent Gallup Poll shows that less than half of all Americans consider themselves to be "very religious". This poll asked Americans to choose one of three categories:

VERY RELIGIOUS -- These people claim religion is important and attend religious services regularly (at least once a week).
NONRELIGIOUS -- These people say religion is not important and almost never attend religious services.
MODERATELY RELIGIOUS -- These people either claim religion is important but don't attend services, or claim it is not important but attend services anyway.

So how does this break down? It turns out that only four out of ten Americans consider themselves to be very religious. Here are the numbers:

VERY RELIGIOUS...............40%
NONRELIGIOUS...............32%
MODERATELY RELIGIOUS...............28%

So it turns out that those who would like to legislate religion into our American law are in the minority. And since many of that 40% who are in the "very religious" category are among those who believe the First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion (the freedom to believe in any religion, or none at all), that means those who wish to legislate their own religious morality are in an even smaller minority. It is time for decent Americans of all faiths (and no faith) to stand up to this tiny minority of religious bigots.

An interesting part of the Gallup Poll was a ranking of states according to their religiosity. This was done by ranking them according to the number of people in each state who claimed to be very religious. Here are the top ten states in both the "most religious" and least religious" categories:

LEAST RELIGIOUS
1. Vermont...............23%
1. NewHampshire...............23%
3. Maine...............25%
4. Massachusetts...............28%
4. Alaska...............28%
6. Oregon...............30%
6. Nevada...............30%
6. Washington...............30%
9. Connecticut...............31%
10. New York...............32%
10. Rhode Island...............32%

MOST RELIGIOUS
1. Mississippi...............59%
2. Utah...............57%
3. Alabama...............56%
4. Arkansas...............54%
4. Louisiana...............54%
4. South Carolina...............54%
7. Tennessee...............52%
8. North Carolina...............50%
9. Georgia...............48%
9. Oklahoma...............48%

If your state is not listed, you can go to the Gallup site (linked above) to see how it ranks (by just moving your computer icon to hover over the state in question).