A Pew Forum study asked respondents whether religion is important in their lives, and 82% percent of Mississipians said yes. Following Mississippi were Alabama and Arkansas (both at 74%), Louisiana (72%), Tennessee (71%), and South Carolina (70%). The New England states of Vermont and New Hampshire (each at 36%) were the least religious; both states allow same-sex marriage.
While the Pacific Northwest has usually been found to be the least religious area in the nation, New England seems to pulling ahead. Another state that is lacking in religious citizens is Sarah Palin’s home state of Alaska, with only 37% claiming to be religious.
Interestingly, the states where people claimed to be most religious had the highest divorce rates. Those that were least religious tended to have superior family values.
If the most religious states spent more time working on real issues like divorce and adultery, instead of harrassing gay taxpayers, they could actually do something productive to save the sanctity of marriage.
Now, this is interesting. Religious people, especially Christians, tend to use as justification for lording their beliefs over people their idea that there is some sort of “joy” concomitant with a “saving faith” in God/Jesus/whoever else. But some other data came out this week that ranks the states by happiness, and then the intrepid elves at Gawker decided it would be fun to merge those statistics with the religiosity statistics to see if there was any correlation?
The result? Nada. No effect.
Another Religious Right myth debunked.
http://gawker.com/5433188/research-shows-where-exactly-the-real-america-is