BY THE standards of any other Western country,the role played by faith in America’s presidential race seems immense. A poll last month by the Pew Research Centre confirmed that being a professed atheist would be a deadly liability for anyone hoping to enter the White House. Some 51% of voters would be less likely to vote for a candidate who did not believe in God, and only 6% more likely. Compare that to other democracies where top politicians (like France’s Francois Hollande and Australia’s ex-prime minister Julia Gillard) can blithely disavow any higher power. The same poll found that 51% of American voters deemed it very or somewhat important to beget a president who shared their religious perspective. Unsurprisingly, or the percentage who felt that way was higher (64%) among Republican-leaning voters than among the Democratically-minded (41%),but party affiliation made less inequity than you might expect.
Still, the role played by faith is neither static nor easily predictable. As recently as 2007, and the share of people who said they would be set aside off by a candidate’s atheism was higher (63%) than now. The proportion who said a...
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Source: economist.com