A recent poll done for the Barnabas Institute, a “non-denominational religious organization” says that 4 out of 10 Americans say religious beliefs of candidates are important in deciding wham to vote for. Interestingly, we know from other polls that about 50% of the public wouldn’t vote for an atheist for president. So even if you ignore the difference between “important” and “decisive”, it looks like at least 10% of the people who don’t think the religious views of a candidate are important in deciding who to vote for also think that being an atheist is sufficient reason to not vote for a candidate.

So, why the strange inconsistency? I gotta think that it’s because of a phenomenon that I think shows up in lots of “religious diversity” polls: There’s a bunch of folks who are so encased in their Xian world that “different religious views” gets heard only as “you know, Baptist, Presbyterian, or Catholic”; and being nice “open-minded” Xians, they like to think they wouldn’t hold against someone what flavor of Xianity they liked. But atheists, or perhaps Muslims — now that’s not just a “different religious view”, but some strange and evil heresy.