The religious right is working to make America more secular:

In a paper in the American Sociological Review, Michael Hout and Claude S. Fischer announced the startling fact that the percentage of Americans who said they had “no religious preference” had doubled in less than 10 years, rising from 7 percent to 14 percent of the population. This unexpected spike wasn’t the result of growing atheism, Hout and Fischer argued; rather, more Americans were distancing themselves from organized religion as “a symbolic statement” against the religious right.

Many Americans are choosing to exchange freedom from eternal damnation for a blatant expression against conservative organized religion. I wonder to what extent the reasoning is something along the lines of if God endorses and condones the likes of Dobson, Falwell, or Robertson, I'd rather be an atheist. Oh, the irony.

Also, there's proof that Democrats should give up their attempts to court the votes of the deeply religious (meaning don't wear religion on one's sleeve while campaigning):

Liberals have spent much of the past six years straining to cut into the GOP’s advantage among religious voters. But when the Democrats finally shattered the Republican majority in the 2006 midterms, it was their consolidation of the secular vote that helped put them over the top. Despite all their efforts to close the God gap, the Democrats managed barely any gains among frequent churchgoers last November—but their share of the vote among Americans who never attend church at all leaped to 67 percent, from 55 percent in 2002.

Democrats should stick to the issues and ease up on the religion talk. The growth is apparently away from religion anyway thanks to the intolerant, hateful Dobson/Falwell/Robertson sect.