This doesn’t surprise me.

The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing, according to an extensive new survey by the Pew Research Center. Moreover, these changes are taking place across the religious landscape, affecting all regions of the country and many demographic groups. While the drop in Christian affiliation is particularly pronounced among young adults, it is occurring among Americans of all ages. The same trends are seen among whites, blacks and Latinos; among both college graduates and adults with only a high school education; and among women as well as men.

There are a lot of reasons for this trend, but based solely on observing the way the loudest Christians are behaving, it’s because they’re turning religion into an overt political movement here in America, some even going so far to express a desire for a theocratic state.  The irony is that they’re calling for that to fight the threat they are seeing from a for-real theocratic state.

Religion has been political since before the Romans carried out the execution of a Jewish dissident in Jerusalem a while back, and countless people have died fighting because they were trying to force their superstitions on other people.  Here at home we’ve used faith as a political litmus test since the founding; why else would the writers of the Constitution insisted on the First Amendment?  But it’s gotten worse in the last few decades thanks to politicians who knew a good wedge issue when they saw it, and that’s how you win elections: pit one group of people against another in the name of a god and watch what happens.