A poll by the Pew Research Center last summer found almost seven in 10 Americans said it was important to them "that a president have strong religious beliefs."
Discussion of faith "is more intense this time around," John Green, senior fellow with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, told Contra Costa Times. "We have strong religious appeals by all the candidates."
In talks to religious groups, Sen. Hillary Clinton has targeted social justice.
Sen. John McCain has said very little about his faith. Raised an Episcopalian, he later became a Baptist. He supports the reversal of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, but wants to expand federal funding for destructive embryonic stem-cell research.
Sen. Barack Obama has said voters are not seeking "a litmus test on faith" so much as "an assurance that a candidate has a value system and that is appreciative of the role that religious faith can play in helping shape people's lives."
Obama, a longtime member of the United Church of Christ, told an audience at an April "Compassion Forum" in Grantham, Pa., that "what those of us of religious faith have to do when we're in the public square is to translate our language into a universal language that can appeal to everybody."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Find out where the candidates stand on issues that matter.
