Praise G-d! Americans Becoming Less Religious

Queerty and Joe.My.God are among several blogs that are reporting about a major Religious Identification study which reports that the number of Americans who respond "none" when asked their religion is up to 15%.

According to 365gay.com:

Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.

Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state.

“No other religious bloc has kept such a pace in every state,” the study’s authors said.

Of course, the impact that an increase in the percentage of people who do not believe in ancient homophobic religious dictates is good news for the LGBT rights movement, as a Queerty analysis shows. New England (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont) contains the states that are the most progressive on LGBT rights in the United States and just happens to be the least religious section of the country, with 34% if Vermonters saying that they have no religion while CT and MA both have marriage equality already and VT and NH have civil unions. In 2009, all 4 states in New England that do not have civil marriage for same-sex couples will be considering bills to legalize the practice--more than half are expected to pass their respective legislatures.

The second least religious area of the United States is the Pacific Northwest (California, Oregon and Washington) three states which have comprehensive domestic partnership statutes which give most or many of the state-bestowed rights and responsibilities of civil marriage to same-sex couples.

The converse is also true. The most religious states are, in order, (Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma). All of these states have at least 75% of their respondents saying that religion is "an important part" of their daily lives. Notice anything? None of these states have statewide protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and all of them except for North Carolina have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage.

MadProfessah is definitely in the 15% who would answer "none" to the question of what my religion is and I am very comfortable calling myself an atheist or agnostic.