Religion can predict a lot about how Americans vote

Where will you spend Sunday morning?

Will you go to church or Home Depot? Sing in the choir or play golf? Answer that question and you've given the most reliable demographic clue about your vote on Election Day.

Voters who say they go to church every week usually vote for Republicans. Those who go to church less often or not at all tend to vote Democratic.

Forget the gender gap: The "religion gap" is bigger, more powerful and growing.

The divide isn't between Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Gentiles. Instead, on one side are those of many faiths who go to services, well, religiously: Catholics who attend Mass without fail, evangelical Christians and mainline Protestants who show up for church rain or shine, some Orthodox Jews. On the other side are those who attend religious services only occasionally or never.

The religion gap is the leading edge of the "culture war" that has polarized American politics, reshaped the coalitions that make up the Democratic and Republican parties and influenced the appeals their presidential candidates are making. The debate over same-sex marriage is expected to make it wider than ever this year. Gay rights, partial-birth abortion, definitions of patriotism and other "values" issues are likely to exacerbate the divide between the most observant and others.

Republicans are targeting the most faithful for political conversion. The GOP uses church membership rolls as one of many means to identify potential supporters. At the White House, President Bush has courted people of faith. They are a huge group: In 2000, one in four voters said they attended church every week.

Meanwhile, Democrats are divided over whether to respond, and how. Presidential candidate John Kerry is now taking some first steps aimed at reaching observant voters whose support for Democrats has been eroding.

"Once social issues came to the forefront — abortion, gay rights, women's rights — it generated differences based on religious attendance," says John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron who studies religion and politics. "More observant people tend to have more traditional morality, and they moved in a more conservative direction because of those issues."

Since 1960, a transformation

Consider the contrast between this year's election and 1960, the last time a Catholic was nominated for president.