Prometheus 6

It's not clear yet how these attitude changes will affect the upcoming presidential election, or if it will take another election or more to see it all shake out -- and how.

"The poll's findings indicate broader seismic shifts occurring that are probably too nascent to be dramatically reflected at the polls on Nov. 4," said Katie Paris, a spokeswoman for Faith in Public Life.

Survey: Culture War Truce on the Horizon
By Michelle Boorstein

Whither the culture wars?

A group of progressive pollsters and activists today released a new survey about religion and the upcoming election that suggests they may be on the wane.

The poll, commissioned by the group Faith in Public Life and conducted by the firm Public Religion Research, concluded that attitudes about hot-button issues such as abortion, legal recognition of same-sex relationships and the size of government are changing among young people -- possibly shifting or weakening the culture wars.

"What we see is younger Americans, including younger Americans of faith -- they are not the culture war generation," said Robert P. Jones, president of Public Religion Research. "They are bridging the divides that have entrenched the older generation."

A majority of white evangelicals, ages 18-34, favor either same-sex marriage or civil unions, compared with a majority of older evangelicals who favor no legal recognition, the poll found. Six in 10 young Catholics say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with half of older Catholics. Young Catholics are more pro-government than any other faith group.

Younger evangelicals are less likely to identify as Republicans, or as "conservatives," though they are not signing up to vote for Obama, the poll showed, mirroring other previous research on that subject.