Free Republic

Keep one thing in mind when looking at the data from Gallup’s latest poll of the Republican field. Their sample includes “Republican-leaning independents� as well as registered Republicans. That’s important, because it helps explain Donald Trump’s sudden resonance in the field: Donald Trump debuts in a first-place tie in Gallup’s latest update of Republicans’ preferences for the party’s 2012 presidential nomination among potential contenders. Trump ties Mike Huckabee at 16%, with Mitt Romney close behind at 13%. Sarah Palin is the only other potential Republican candidate to earn double-digit support.The April 15-20 Gallup poll finds Trump leading the field among...

Utah, where most surveys show just more than two-thirds of the residents are Latter-day Saints, is the 12th most religious state in the United States. Utah takes a back seat to 11 Southern states, most in the Bible Belt. According to a new analysis released by the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life, the most religious states are Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Georgia and Kentucky. The rankings were based on a question about how important religion was in people's lives taken during a 2007 Religious Landscape Survey. States where religion is least important...

A recent poll of more than 350,000 Americans on the importance of religion revealed that the nation is separated into enclaves of widely divergent viewpoints on faith, with some states and regions clearly religious and others significantly secular. Gallup conducted a telephone poll of 355,334 U.S. adults, asking the question, "Is religion an important part of your daily life?" As one might suspect, states from the "Bible Belt" scored the highest, with 85 percent of Mississippians and 79 percent of Tennesseeans, for example, answering yes. The poll also revealed, however, that in addition to the Bible Belt, the U.S. also...

A few months ago, another Civil War blogger mocked my contention that the South remains the last great bastion of Judeo-Christian conservatism in the United States, even though poll after poll shows that to be the truth - the South is still the "Bible Belt." Now comes this story . . .

Demographics Tell The GOP To Go Upscale By MICHAEL BARONE | Posted Friday, January 30, 2009 There's a debate going on in some Republican circles over which groups of the electorate the party should target. This debate starts off with some uncomfortable realizations. One is that while John McCain's 46% share of the vote is not as dismal as some losing candidates of the past, it is still far short of a majority and does not look to be easily expanded. Yes, McCain showed strength in Jacksonian America, along the Appalachian chain and west to Arkansas and Oklahoma. And he...

CASAR — Nancy Leedy and Joanie Beasley are unabashed environmentalists, Christians and lesbians. But some people give the couple and others like them a hard time about their lifestyle. The couple has been bounced from church to church in the county — told not to attend or to attend only at early, less-attended services — and is at times ostracized by their community, they said. The solution? A camp dedicated to creating a friendly environment for all types of people: straight, gay, bi-sexual, lesbian or transgender. Born from a stretch of nature a short distance across the Cleveland-Rutherford county line,...

September 11 has given the prophets of doom a new lease of life in America. Charles Laurence finds fundamentalist churches full again. THE illuminated sign outside the Alabama country church reads: "Church Closing Soon Due To Rapture." It is a succinct statement of a belief often thought to be confined to cartoons and Speakers' Corner soapboxes. The Rapture is the Apocalypse, and it means that the end of the world is nigh - a sentiment that has gained enormous resonance in the United States since September 11. The idea that the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon represent ...

Preacher Dan Smith turned a rap song about babes with booty into a spoof Internet hit, and used it to help create a new church for people who hate church. Dan Smith thinks Christians take themselves too seriously. Pastor Dan Smith's 'Baby Got Book' video, a big hit online, helped him start his Momentum Church. "We can be dorks," he says after Sunday service in suburban Cleveland. "We can be Ned Flanders and basically speak jargon that nobody understands." The 33-year-old pastor has made it his mission to turn the notion of earnest, boring, humorless Christianity on its head —...

After decades of excoriating evangelical Christians as bigoted morons, foaming-at-the-mouth fanatics and vile hypocrites -- both sexually-obsessed and sexually-repressed (part Elmer Gantry, part Elmer Fudd) -- the media has hit on a new tactic. The cover story ("America's God Complex - Like George W. Bush, The Religious Right Is At The Crossroads") in the November 13th Newsweek explains that evangelicals aren't really all that bad - it's just that the poor fools have been duped by the Republican Party, their energies (which should be devoted to more worthwhile endeavors) diverted to sordid politics. But there's hope that the Bible Belt...

The widening gap between the haves and have-nots isn't just about money. It's also about who gets married and stays married, according to the National Marriage Project, based at Rutgers University. A study released yesterday shows that people with higher incomes and levels of education are the winners in marriage, while people who are less well off and less educated are more likely to divorce or never marry at all. The "marriage gap" has major repercussions throughout American society, according to "The State of Our Unions: The Social Health of Marriage in America," part of the project's eighth annual report....

Spencer Tirey for The New York TimesMembers of Etz Chaim established their synagogue in a former Assembly of God church in Arkansas. There are about 100 members. BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Residents of Benton County, in the northwest corner of Arkansas, are proud citizens of the Bible Belt. At last count, they filled 39 Baptist, 27 United Methodist and 20 Assembly of God churches. For decades, a local hospital has begun meetings with a reading from the New Testament and the library has featured an elaborate Christmas display. Then the Wal-Mart Jews arrived. Recruited from around the country as workers...

State health officials on Wednesday shut down a Birmingham abortion clinic after a woman was told she was six weeks pregnant and given an abortion-inducing drug, then delivered a 6 pound, 4 ounce stillborn child at a local hospital.[Not the abortion clinic] The State Board of Health issued an emergency order of license suspension on Wednesday against Summit Medical Center of Alabama on Southside. “That’s not something we do very often,” said Dr. Donald Williamson, state health officer. “The incident involved multiple and serious violations of the rules. There was no other means to address it except an emergency suspension.”...

In a sleazy hotel room, "Brittany," then aged 16 and drugged into oblivion, waited for the men to arrive. Her pimps sent as many as 17 clients an evening through the door. ADVERTISEMENT A "john" could even pre-book the pretty young blonde for $1,000 a night, sometimes flying in and then flying out from a nearby airport. None of this happened in Bangkok or Costa Rica, places that have become synonymous with sex tourism and underage sex. It took place in Atlanta, the buckle of the U.S. Bible Belt, where the world's busiest passenger airport provides a cheaper, more convenient...

FEATURE-Sex tourism thriving in U.S. Bible Belt Tue 4 Apr 2006 8:01 AM ET By Verna Gates and Mickey Goodman ATLANTA, April 4 (Reuters) - In a sleazy hotel room, "Brittany," then aged 16 and drugged into oblivion, waited for the men to arrive. Her pimps sent as many as 17 clients an evening through the door. A "john" could even pre-book the pretty young blonde for $1,000 a night, sometimes flying in and then flying out from a nearby airport. None of this happened in Bangkok or Costa Rica, places that have become synonymous with sex tourism and underage...

PORTLAND, Maine - New Englanders remain among the most tightfisted in the country when it comes to charitable giving while Bible Belt residents are among the most generous, according to an annual index. For the fourth year running, New Hampshire was the most miserly state, according to the Catalogue of Philanthropy's Generosity Index. Mississippi remained at the top for generosity.

WHITLEY CITY, Ky. - It's one of the more conspicuous road signs on U.S. 27, a scenic route that meanders through the Daniel Boone National Forest on its way to a popular recreational area on Lake Cumberland. "WARNING. Jesus is coming. RU Ready?" Such proclamations, already common throughout the Bible Belt, could proliferate along roadsides in reaction to a Supreme Court ruling barring displays of the Ten Commandments in two southern Kentucky courthouses, said Don Swarthout, head of the Kentucky-based Christians Reviving America's Values. "People want to do something to reflect their principles, and that's one way they can legally...

I live in Fairfax California. I have been for most of my life. I am fed up with the economy, the blackouts the crime and all the liberals. I am thinking of moving and I was wondering if any of you know a good place for an average joe like myself to live in. In a couple weeks I'll have enough money and I can take the greyhound out of here and move out of this dump. Im looking for a place where I can get jobs, not have nasty taxes, some good public transportation in a city and to...

This is a shameless vanity for which I apologize. I am not HTML friendly. I read an article in this weeks Time Magaziner entitled "Bible-Belt Catholics," which discusses the upsurge in the number of Catholics in the Southern states. The author made one statement which I don't belive is accurate, to-wit: Given how overwhelmingly Protestant the South was in the 20th century, it easy to forget that the Catholic Church - which, to its shame, condoned slavery - was a player there before the Civil War.The author gives no attribution for this statement. I wanted to turn the power of...

How the Liberals Will Promote ‘Blue’ Churches [Cue the Darth Vader theme] ACW II isn’t over. 48% of the U.S. did not have an epiphany and conversion experience after President Bush’s election. The Liberals will strike back. Their front ranks will be filled with clerical collars. ‘Blue’ churches like Blue states will be the base for counter-attacks on ‘value voters’ on many fronts. The blue churches are the Religious Left – mainline Protestant churches with declining membership, lapsed, cafeteria Catholics and secular Jews. And all the other Pagan faithful who are ‘spiritual not religious’, Wiccan, Vegan, etc. The Liberals will...

DECATUR, Ga. (AP) -- When Becky Cleaveland is out with her girlfriends, they all pick at salads except for the petite Atlanta woman. She tackles "The Hamdog." The dish, a specialty of Mulligan's, a suburban bar, is a hot dog wrapped by a beef patty that's deep fried, covered with chili, cheese and onions and served on a hoagie bun. Oh yeah, it's also topped with a fried egg and two fistfuls of fries. "The owner says I'm the only girl who can eat a whole one without flinching," Cleaveland said proudly. Amid a national obesity epidemic and the South's...

Eight years ago, a handful of Roman Catholic families in Huntersville, a suburb of Charlotte, N.C., started a new parish. The home of their church, St. Mark, was a bowling alley. Our Lady of the Lanes, as they jokingly called it, was an apt symbol of the scarcity--and supple ingenuity--of Catholics in a region known as the buckle of the Protestant Bible Belt. Soon St. Mark was gaining a family a day. Now its almost 2,800 families hear Mass in a cavernous gymnasium as they await completion of a new church. Among the newcomers is Ben Liuzzo, 54, a financial-services...

Bob Beckel says on Fox News that now with the South in solid Republican hands, it should be it's own nation. A confederacy if they want it. I guess the Dems don't think they've got a chance of getting that part of the country back.

AS GORE SMEARS CHRISTIANS, WEBSITE ADVOCATES CHURCH ARSON By Don Feder The Democratic Party isn’t inciting church arson – just yet. But, despite its occasional pious pretenses, the Democrats see Christian America as enemy terrain. Here, at least, the party of Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich is willing to overcome its ingrained pacifism and engage in the rhetorical equivalent of war. The latest issue of The New Yorker contains a 12,000-word profile piece on Al Gore, in which the former vice president disgorges his views on a variety of subjects. Only a hopelessly partisan media would consider the reflections of...

Sex Tips for Red-State Girls! By JENNIFER SENIOR Published: July 4, 2004 Ever since she qualified for a car award from her employer, Passion Parties, Linda Brewer has buzzed around the South in a silver Cadillac Escalade with a license plate that says ''Funlady.'' On the road, men often notice it and honk before passing, only to realize, with baffled amusement, that a woman of nearly 60 is at the wheel. ''Hey, girl,'' she shouted the first time we met, as she smiled and waved from the car window. ''Climb in.'' Passion Parties is a direct-sales organization based in Brisbane,...

Coming Out Is Getting a Little Easier in NWA by Su-Lauren E. Perry More than a thousand same-sex couples tied the knot in San Francisco last week after the city's new mayor supported the union that is currently prohibited by California law. Same-sex marriages and other gay-rights issues are likely to become a hot topic in the upcoming presidential race. Here in Northwest Arkansas things are also starting to change for those in the gay and lesbian communities. The "hole in the Bible Belt where the buckle goes through," seems to be getting a little larger.Northwest Arkansas has always...

<p>Many South Carolina Democrats believe presidential hopeful Howard Dean's promise to talk about his relationship with Jesus is a calculated ploy to pander to Southerners — in particular blacks — participating in next month's South Carolina primary.</p> <p>"A lot of Democrats here are calling it his 'Road to Columbia conversion,' " said one senior state Democrat, referring to the state's capital city.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. A recent analysis of casino gambling´s economic impact in the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis district, which includes Arkansas, suggests that rural counties could gain in household and payroll employment by allowing casinos. But the study by economist Thomas A. Garrett that appears in the January/February issue of Review also said the origin and skill level of the work force could have a major influence on a casino´s economic impact. Two of the six counties studied in the analysis are Tunica and Warren counties in Mississippi, the counties that include...

Southern discomfort Sunday, December 28th, 2003 A few weeks ago at a ritzy fund-raiser for the Committee to Protect Journalists, my wife, Lisa, was introduced to a man named Steven Isenberg.Isenberg was once Mayor John Lindsay's chief of staff. Later, he was the publisher of Newsday. Now he teaches literature at the University of Texas in Austin.That gave them something in common: Lisa is a graduate of the University of Texas."Are you from Texas?" he asked."No. I'm a Louisianan."And he said: "Well, you're the cleanest one I've ever met."Reading Howard Dean's Christmas Eve interview in The Boston Globe reminded me...

<p>Last Saturday night, in the sparsely populated eastern hill country of Tennessee, more than 160,000 people gathered in this small town to watch cars race around a tiny oval. It was another sold-out event for Nascar, a sports juggernaut that now rivals the NFL in popular appeal.</p>

How judge's stand resonates in Bible Belt By Noel C. Paul | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor DERIDDER, LA. – Come sundown, an endless forest of pine trees casts long, spindly shadows on the highways in this town that, locals like to say, has more churches per capita than any other on the face of the earth. The scent of pine pervades every block here in DeRidder, where 76 churches minister to a population of 9,000. Mixed with the smell of smoke from trash burnings, there is a brooding, mystical air to the town, as if hermits and...