THE SECULARIST PARTY

Just as the GOP guns for the conservative Christian vote, Democrats have become the party of the secularists:

"Seculars have become an increasing portion of the Democratic electoral coalition and especially of the party's activist base," says Geoffrey Layman of the University of Maryland, who dates the trend from 1972 and considered it obvious by 1992.

A religiously linked values clash is redefining U.S. politics, Louis Bolce and Gerald De Maio of City University of New York say. If Republicans are labeled the party of religious traditionalists, they assert, "the Democrats with equal validity can be called the secularist party."

A spring University of Akron poll of 4,000 adults showed Americans without religious affiliation are 17 percent of self-identified Democrats, rivaling the party's traditional blocs of white Catholics (18 percent) and black Protestants (16 percent). Secularists favored John Kerry (news - web sites) over George W. Bush by 57.4 percent to 27.2 percent, with the rest backing others or undecided. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 2 percentage points.

I have my problems with the Republicans, but it's clear the Democrats continue to run from God as hard as they can.