Looks like we're making some ground in US politics.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Jerry Coyne brings us news:

The importance of religiosity to US voters
whyevolutionistrue | July 29, 2011 at 4:58 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/ppUXF-aHJ

by Sigmund

The Public Religion Research Institute is a Washington based group that describes itself as “a nonprofit, nonpartisan, independent organization dedicated to research at the intersection of religion, values, and public life”. Amongst its activities is the collection of data regarding religious views and opinions of the general public in the US. They recently carried out a telephone poll of a random sample 1012 adults in the US that provides some interesting data on just how important the general public currently regards the religiosity of politicians.

It's a very brief survey, with only a few questions asked - mainly concerning the knowledge of members of the public about the religion of potential candidates for the upcoming 2012 Presidential election, namely Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann.

The results are, unsurprisingly, that most people don't have a good idea about the actual stated religion of any of the candidates (18%, for example, think Obama is muslim - again, not a shock.)

The one result to note, however, is that of the question:
"How important is it for a candidate to have strong religious beliefs, regardless of whether those beliefs are the same as yours. Is it very important, somewhat important, not too important or not at all important?"

The results indicate that 'very important' and 'somewhat important' got the highest response (as expected for a US survey) with 30% and 26% respectively.

The surprising thing is that 'not at all important' is also 26%, with 'not too important' being 17%.

Considering that the USA public has in the past been shown a high importance in religiosity, particularly in regards its politicians, it is interesting that the proportion of the population that regards being religious is unimportant in a politician is currently not too far behind those who find it essential. With much higher levels of religiosity found in the elderly US population compared to the young it is not out of the question that European levels of disregard for religiosity might be on the cards within the next generation on simple demographic grounds alone.