Survey: Candidates viewed as 'least religious' are leading polls

"The candidates viewed by voters as the least religious among the leading contenders are the current frontrunners for the Democratic and Republican nominations," the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reports today.

Those candidates would be Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani.

"As in the past," the Pew report continues, "most Americans continue to say that it is important for a president to have strong religious beliefs. And voters who see presidential candidates as religious express more favorable views toward those candidates than do voters who view them as not religious. But the latest Pew survey finds that candidates for the White House need not be seen as very religious to be broadly acceptable to the voting public." the rest