Is Religion that important?

There was a video posted this week on Yahoo! News about Fred Thompson and whether or not he belongs to a church. This interested me because is it really that important? Yes, I know candidates and their religion has an important influence on some states (i.e.: the Bible Belt) but is our President’s faith really crucial to our nation as a whole? So far, religion has not played a crucial role in the 2008 election. The current Democratic and Republican front runner candidates are Clinton and Giuliani, and from the voters’ perspective, these two candidates are viewed as the least religious. Ironically, Romney’s beliefs in his religion, Mormonism, seem very disadvantageous to his political standing because voters view him as ultra-religious. In the past, it has been seen as important for the Presidential candidates to have strong religious beliefs because many political issues are based around religion, for example: gay marriage, abortion, stem cell transplants… Voters have previously be in favor of the candidate with similar religious views to theirs, but a recent survey now states “that candidates for the White House need not be seen as very religious to be broadly acceptable to the voting public” (http://pewforum.org/surveys/campaign08/). The government has always been adamant about separating church and state, so why is it so crucial whether or not our Presidential candidates belong to a church or not? Does religion really have a strong impact on which candidate you will vote for, or is it more about their stance on political issues and their intentions if elected as President?

http://pewforum.org/assets/images/246-1.png --> New Poll: How Religious Is...