One interesting thing about stereotypes: they are often wrong. For example, Michael Paulson in the Boston Globe, writing up the recent Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life poll on religion in America:

The study confirms a fact known widely by scholars of religion in public life: the more often people attend worship, the more likely they are to be politically conservative. Mormons and evangelical Protestants are the most likely to be doctrinally orthodox and politically conservative, while Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists are more liberal in both their theology and their politics, the study finds.

But there is tremendous diversity within each faith - among evangelical Protestants, for example, only 52 percent describe themselves as conservative, and 30 percent say they follow government and public affairs only some of the time. Although evangelicals have traditionally been viewed as Republican voters, the poll suggests a significant minority do not view themselves as conservative, a fact reflected this year as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tries to reach out to evangelical voters.

"The diversity within Americans' religious communities is not as widely reported as perhaps it should be," said John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum. "There is a tendency to focus on the most vocal members of religious traditions, that often happen to be the most orthodox, or the most traditional, or the most observant, largely ignoring people of more moderate views, or who are largely nominal in their religiosity.

We knew there are regional differences. For example, I frequently write that New Englanders consider it impolite to discuss religion and politicts openly. Again from Paulson:

New Englanders are among the least likely to say they are religious, according to the study. Massachusetts lags behind the nation - often near the bottom of all states - in the percentage of its residents who say they are certain that God exists, that they believe the word of God is literally true, that religion is very important in their lives, or that they attend worship weekly or pray daily.

This helps explains why, for example, when I travel to Dallas and see multiple evangelical billboards near the airport, it feels for a moment like I've landed in a foreign country.

Here's another graf of interest:

Although the Catholic church is known for its ardent opposition to abortion, the poll finds Catholics almost evenly split on the issue, with 48 percent saying abortion should be legal in most cases, and 45 percent saying it should be illegal.

Click here and use the pull-down to look at some demographics. Note that Latino and non-Latino Catholics are not separated.

A complementary view of Catholic political affiliations can be found here, including the marked desertion of those willing to label themselves Republicans (independents can still vote for anyone):

Although Catholic Democrats outnumber Catholic Republicans in the United States, both are outnumbered by the 41 percent of U.S. Catholic voters who are not affiliated with either party, according to new data from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

In a report titled "Election '08 Forecast," released June 20, CARA compared data on party identification and the social, political and moral views of the estimated 47 million potential Catholic voters in the November election.

Currently, 38 percent of Catholic voters identify themselves, either strongly or weakly, with the Democratic Party, while 21 percent said they were affiliated with the Republican Party, strongly or weakly.

"If Catholics stick to their current party identification when voting for president, (presumptive Democratic nominee Sen.) Barack Obama would have the potential edge over (presumptive Republican nominee Sen.) John McCain among Catholics by more than 8 million," the report said, noting there would be 18 million Democrats compared to 10 million Republicans if they stay with their party affiliation.

Speaking of politics, the CARA study has this interesting nuggest:

The report disputed the belief -- based only on exit polls -- that Catholics have "a near perfect winning streak" in backing the winner in recent presidential elections. By also using data from the American National Election Studies and Gallup polls, CARA found that Catholics voted for the winner in the overall popular vote 71 percent of the time between 1952 and 2004 and the Electoral College winner 64 percent of the time.

"In the past five elections, a majority of Catholics voted with the winning candidate only when Bill Clinton was on the ballot," the report said.

Compare to ABC:

CHARLIE GIBSON: There are some key constituency groups, though, with which John McCain is actually doing pretty well with.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And these are the groups that go with the winners. Uh, independents, right now, it's basically a dead heat for Obama. You think he would be doing better than that. Again, given the conditions of the country. Also, McCain (is) doing very well with the group that's been right the last eight elections - white Catholics - he's leading by 14 points among those groups.

The bottom line is that while it's true that the more one attends regular church and religious services the more Republican and conservative the voter, the less that predicts religious groups as a whole or as a block in terms of where they will wind up in November.

In the meantime, explore the links... there's a wealth of information at Pew well worth your time, and the CARA study is interesting in its own right.

Support remained relatively steady for government-provided health care for all Americans (78 percent in 2006), the right of workers to a living wage and to form unions (82 percent) and use of the death penalty for those convicted of premeditated murder (67 percent).

Both candidates will be competing for these votes... as they should. We are all Americans, and a majority of us want the same things for our country and our families. Splintering out this group and pitting them against that group is not going to work as well this year for Republicans as it did for Bush in 2000 and 2004. And as for proof, well, we will have to wait until November and the exit polls.