CARBONDALE - Ray Suarez believes religion will always influence voters' decisions but religious groups may become lesser players in the political game.

Suarez, senior correspondent for PBS's "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," supported this belief with statistics from a recent Pew Research Center study during a lecture at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Sixteen percent of American adults are unaffiliated with any religion, which doubles the total who said they had no religious affiliation as a child, the study found. One out of four people in the 18 to 29 age bracket claim no religious affiliation.

On top of those statistics, Suarez cited the study as showing 44 percent of Americans are not currently members of the religious group they were raised in, and 40 percent of married adults have a spouse from a different religion.

All of these factors will change the impact religious groups as a whole have on the political atmosphere, Suarez said. Religious beliefs, however, will always play a role because they shape world views, which in turn shape political decisions.

"The wave has crested," Suarez said in reference to the impact of religious groups, which played a prominent role in both the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Suarez mentioned examples of how all major presidential candidates have included religion as part of their campaigns or how the media has questioned them about it.

Republican Mike Huckabee's advertisements prominently display the words "Christian Leader," and Democratic candidate Barack Obama uses religious messages as a way of promoting his theme of unity and one America, Suarez said.

The crowd roared with laughter at the end of the question-and-answer session, when an SIUC student asked Suarez the same question he mocked former Republican candidate Mitt Romney for answering early in the election cycle: "Were you a virgin on the night of your honeymoon?"

While Romney answered the question "Yes," Suarez chose, "I will refuse to answer that question and just say I'm a child of my generation."

adam.testa@thesouthern.com

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