Is Massachusetts not that liberal/progressive?

[freepcrusher]

The thing is, is that the mainline Christian religions (and I consider Catholics mainline for this purpose), are losing adherents in droves. That is why the Catholic percentage in the US is gradually drifting down despite the huge influx of Hispanics, and even though the Catholic figure is inflated somewhat because I suspect there is a particular high percentage of CINO's (Catholics in name only). So the mainline belts in the US have a particularly rapidly growing percentage of the "unchurched."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Excellent point. I don't have data, but even here in the Bible Belt, lots of non-Baptists are increasingly unchurched. For whatever reason, Baptists are supremely effective in getting their folks to remain strong believers, through and through, even if they don't ever go to church as adults. Catholics seem to have the opposite situation where a lot of folks go to church and then return home with more willingness to think critically. Probably because Catholics stress reasoning in their dogma ( even if I don't buy a lot of it), whereas fundies are all about faith. Perhaps this should be the Baptist anthem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu3VTngm1F0&ob=av2e

true enough I was raised catholic and went to catholic schools as a kid but I'm now an agnostic.

[freepcrusher]

i wouldn't say it is liberal but I would say its probably the least conservative state in the country. The reason why people think its so liberal is because the parts of the state that most people visit are very liberal (the Berkshires and the Suffolk County/South Middlesex area).

It does seem that they have a far left delegation though. In a state with only ten districts they have guys like Markey McGovern Frank Olver and Capuano who are all very far to the left.