Furthermore, 56% of Americans who think religion is losing its influence think it's a bad thing, and only 12% think it's a good thing. I'm definitely one of those 12 percenters who think it's a bad thing. I think religion needs to recede from American cultural and political influence and the faster that happens the better the nation will be as a whole.
But the main question I want to address is whether or not opinion of the majority of Americans is correct: Is religion losing its influence in cultural and political matters?
To answer that we have to look at the recent presidential election as well as demographic data and polls on social issues. The largest and most powerful religious influence in the US has without a doubt been that of white evangelical Christians. Almost all US presidents have been Protestant with just a few exceptions. Even so, and despite a recent uptick of those who think religious institutions should get more political, data indicates that the influence of this large and mostly Republican demographic is shrinking and losing influence.
When it comes to demographics, the first and most important factor in the decline of white evangelical Christians is that the country is getting less white. The US is only 63% white, down from 69% in 2000, and 80% in 1980. As the white population shrinks, the white evangelical population shrinks. Second, the country is getting less Christian. The US is only 70% Christian, down from 78% in 2007, and 90% in 1963. In just the past 20 years the percentage of both Christians and the religiously affiliated began to rapidly decline. And just like with the white population, as the Christian population shrinks, the white evangelical population shrinks—along with their influence. Protestants now make up less than half (46%) the US population. Thirdly, there is a large generational gap with respect to Christian religiosity indicating what's to come. Only 56% of millennials are Christian, whereas 70% of generation X, and 78% of baby boomers are Christian.

Culturally, Americans are moving more to the left on many traditional social issues. Support for same sex marriage continues to grow almost every year, as well as marijuana legalization. And although the numbers for abortion are less dramatic, a majority (56%) think it should be legal in all or most cases. The Religious Right has lost the culture war and they know it. These social issues divide Americans less and less every year, and with that the main weaponry in the arsenal of religious conservatives misfires.
In the Democratic party you can already see what is to come. Candidates rarely wear their religion on their sleeve, and in the 2012 convention the party was accused of removing god from their platform altogether. This time around Bernie Sanders became the first openly non-religious person to almost win the primary of a major party. On the democratic side at least we're ready for an openly non-religious candidate. I'd say that in the Green and Libertarian parties the same is true as well, as neither candidates are particularly religious. As time marches on, we will see more and more of this. Open religiosity among candidates will increasingly become a taboo as it has been in socially secular countries like England for years, and you will see it marginalized to a few soundbites, or not mentioned at all. I'm still waiting for the day when America will get its first viable openly atheistic presidential candidate. I wonder if he or she will be a millennial, or generation X.
Until then, secular liberals like myself will continue to rejoice in the fall of the religious conservatives and their influence in the US.
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