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While the United States has long maintained a distinct separation between church and
state, the lines between religion and politics have not been so demarcated. A recent study by
Green et al. (2004) noted that during the 2004 elections, 47 percent of voters in the United States
said that “faith was more important than or as important as other factors in their voting
decisions.”
The involvement of religion in politics has been around for a long time, but researchers
started to take it more seriously in the past twenty years. Social scientists have examined the role
religion plays in political behavior in a variety of circumstances (for a review of much of this
literature, see Jelen 1998). The Catholic Church has taken a firm stance on the issue of abortion
and has worked with other religions to pass restrictions on abortions at the state level (Day 1992;
O'Hara 1992). In the late 1970s and early 1980s religious conservatives began to be actively
involved in the Republican Party and made their voice heard on a number of social issues (Guth
1983; Oldfield 1996). Others (Green, Rozell, and Wilcox 2003) note that the Christian Right has
continued to have an impact in the political arena although many of the movement’s goals
remain unfulfilled. One study (Harris 1994) found that religion can serve as a source of
organization and psychological mobilization for collective political action among African
Americans. Religious organizations have called for boycotts on products and television
programs in an effort to influence institutions and their policies.
This paper looks at the results of previous studies (Morgan and Meier 1980; Satterthwaite
2005) that examine the impact religion has on referenda voting in the state of Oklahoma and
compares the results with those of the 2004 elections. This study addresses the question; “Does
religion still matter?” The two earlier studies looked at a total of 10 ballot questions over the
course of nearly four decades. All of these questions involved “moral issues” wherein churches
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