Religious Adherents Map

Bryan Fischer at Idaho Values Alliance brought this map to my attention. It shows what percentage of the population by county identifies with 149 religious bodies that participated in a 2000 survey.



Click to get it larger.

There are some unsurprising parts of the map. Utah and eastern Idaho (with its large Mormon population) has very high percentages. The Midwest and some parts of the South are also pretty thick. The West Coast (except for a few remarkable counties in California and eastern Washington) is not terribly strong.

A lot of states that have reputations for being politically quite conservative (Virginia, most of Idaho, Florida, Maine) are not, by this map, terribly religious--at least with respect to traditional organized religion. Remember that religion and conservative politics don't have a perfect correlation. Much of Los Angeles County's high adherents rate is probably centered in South Central Los Angeles, and Massachusetts and much of Connecticut have very high rates of religious adherents, but aren't even slightly conservative.

Another point to remember is that a lot of what calls itself "conservative" in politics is really more libertarian. In many cases, those who call themselves conservative don't really understand the difference, and in other cases, prefer to call themselves "conservative" because it doesn't have the negative baggage that the Libertarian Party has unintentionally attached to that term. A lot of libertarian Republicans are not ideological purists; they don't think the government should be going around actively pursuing pot smokers, but they also wouldn't buy into repealing laws against cocaine or heroin.

Here in Idaho, there is an uneasy alliance between social conservatives, libertarians, and non-ideological Big Business Republicans. I can disagree with libertarian Republicans on some policies, and yet see some merit to their concerns. In many cases, applying a libertarian approach with moderation can be useful. For example, I suspect that if prostitution were made legal--and tightly regulated, as is done in some Nevada counties--it would probably be a net gain for the society (although not for a fair number of individuals).

My impression is that the libertarian and conservative Republicans have managed to make a bit of common cause over the years, but the Big Business Republicans have been howling as they have lost influence (and I mean that in the perjorative sense of the word). A former neighbor of mine was a member of the Idaho State Senate for several terms, but eventually decided to stop running because corporate contributions diminished so dramatically that he couldn't justify spending that much of his own money to win re-election. He was voting his conscience and the interests of his constituents--and that was often not that of business interests here.