Alabama is USA’s 2d most religious state

Alabama also ranks up there in poverty, divorce, sexually transmitted diseases, lack of a high school education, spousal abuse, and…

Thank God for Mississippi, eh?

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Gallup: Alabama 2nd most religious state in America

By George Talbot | gtalbot@al.com
on February 17, 2013 at 10:51 AM, updated February 17, 2013 at 12:31 PM

Alabama ranked as the nation’s second most religious state in 2012, behind Mississippi and tied with Utah, according to a new survey by Gallup.

The Washington, D.C.-based polling firm found that 56 percent of Alabama residents identified themselves as “very religious” – based on saying religion is an important part of their daily life and that they attend religious services every week or almost every week.

Alabama trailed only Mississippi, its Deep South neighbor, where 58 percent described themselves as very religious. At the other end of the spectrum, Vermont remained the least religious state, with 19% of its residents classified as very religious.

Walter Warren McGehee worships at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Montgomery, Alabama on Nov. 27, 2011. (David Bundy / AP Photo)

Eight of the 10 most religious states were in the South, with Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia and Oklahoma rounding out the top 10. The rankings were unchanged from a similar survey by Gallup in 2011.

Overall, 40 percent of Americans nationwide were classified as very religious in 2012, according to Gallup. Thirty-one percent of Americans were nonreligious, saying religion is not an important part of their daily life and that they seldom or never attend religious services.

The remaining 29 percent of Americans were moderately religious, saying religion is important in their lives but that they do not attend services regularly, or that religion is not important but that they still attend services.

“America remains a religious nation — with about seven in 10 Americans classified as very or moderately religious — but these patterns of religion are quite varied across the regions of the country,” said Gallup editor Frank Newport. “Southern states and Utah are the most religious areas in the nation, while New England states and those in the far Northwest are the least religious. There has been little change in these patterns over the past year.”

Gallup said the 12 least religious states comprise the entirety of New England — Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut — along with the three most Northwestern states in the union, Alaska, Washington, and Oregon, plus the District of Columbia, Nevada, and Hawaii.

Gallup said results for the poll were based on telephone interviews conducted Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 2012, on the Gallup Daily tracking survey, with a random sample of 348,306 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Here’s the full ranking as released by Gallup, or click here to view it on Gallup’s web site:

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http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/02/gallup_alabama_2nd_most_religi.html