Majority of Americans want president who respects church/state separation.

[Valigarmander]

Not by a huge margin, but at least it's something.

Good news for secular values: A majority of U.S. citizens prefer presidential candidates who believe religion has no place in government according to a recently released CNN poll.

According to the poll, 56% of American voters prefer presidential candidates who believe religious views have no place in government; while 42% of American voters prefer presidential candidates who believe religious views should drive policy actions.

The new CNN poll asks voters to imagine “the perfect candidate to succeed Barack Obama as president.” Voters are then asked:

For each of the following pairs of statements, tell me which one better describes your perfect candidate, even if neither is exactly right.

The following results were obtained when asked about candidates’s religious views shaping government policy decisions:

The candidate believes religious views should drive policy actions 42%
The candidate believes religious views have no place in government 56%
No opinion 2%

Digging deeper into the numbers, CNN reports on the ideological divide when it comes to religious views shaping government policy:

… a majority of Americans would rather have a candidate who says religious views have no place in government (56%) over one who believes religious views ought to drive policy (42%). Here, there are sharp ideological divides. About 6 in 10 Republicans (61%) and conservatives (62%) say they’d rather a candidate who believes religious views should drive policy action, while Democrats (62%) and liberals (82%) break mostly the opposite way. Independents tend to favor the Democrats’ take on this question: 62% say their perfect candidate wouldn’t use religion to make policy choices.

It should come as no surprise that a majority of Republicans (61%) and conservatives (62%) favor candidates who believe religious views should drive public policy.

Nor should it be surprising that most Democrats (62%) and a large majority of liberals (82%) respect the U.S. Constitution and the secular values upon which this nation was founded by affirming the notion that religious views have no place in government.

All in all, the poll represents good news for secular values. Bottom line: A majority of Americans want presidential candidates to honor the separation of church and state.

[Munch]

Well, this is CNN talking.

[Atheon]

Now we just need them to fucking VOTE.

[SGOS]

56% is higher than I expected when I opened the thread.  Especially given how the poll appears to be worded.  The article says, "56% of Americans say religious views have no place in government."  That's quite a definitive statement.  And 56% to 42% is a considerable spread for the populace.  Not so much for the electoral college, however. 

[GrinningYMIR]

I'd feel like the whole separation of church and state should be a mainstay :/

[Solitary]

It's a start.  Solitary

[Hydra009]

42% of Americans need a boot to the head.

[Brian37]

First Amendment. Oath of Office. Barbary treaty article 11. We are not and have never been a theocracy.

[Combanitorics]

Good.  Someone thinks the government should actually do the work of being the government and not rely on divine intervention.

[TopCat]

42% of Americans need a boot to the head.

Agreed

[Atheon]

We call that 42% "Republicans". They suffer from a condition where their brains were installed backwards at brith, which is why they think as if they're from opposite-land.

[josephpalazzo]

We call that 42% "Republicans". They suffer from a condition where their brains were installed backwards at brith, which is why they think as if they're from opposite-land.

[stromboli]

[AllPurposeAtheist]

[AllPurposeAtheist]

There are quite a few people 'of faith' within the progressive movement,  some ok, some not so ok, but one thing that is becoming quite clear is the religious affiliated in the US are becoming more and more aligned with the left and rejecting the hard right conservative ideas of greed is good and all the rest of the gop nonsense.
Just because someone believes in a god and that they think prayers are actually answered that doesn't necessarily mean that the only way to run a country is through a hard right theocracy.
My girlfriend calls herself a christian and could hardly be called a conservative by any stretch of the imagination.  She believes in a strong separation of church and state and that churches ought to be taxed. She's hardly alone in this.
The republicans seized on the idea that piousness equated to right wing ideology and for a while it worked for them quite well, but with everything they took it to far and now many church goers reject the idea that the preacher is better equipped to run a country than a church. The religious affiliated within the gop has been dropping like flies because the gop has rejected the notion of the very things that are actually preached in churches,  charity, forgiveness and so on ..
Look, as atheists it's easy to sit and make the assumption that everyone who believes in a god is driven by hard right ideology, but the two are not and never have been mutually exclusive and to assume that politically is plain stupid. The idea that progressives should just dismiss the pious and let the right wing have their way with such a huge voting block is political suicide.