I go the other way. The more a candidate talks about his religious beliefs, the less likely I am to vote for him. I want him to talk about his political positions and keep his religious positions to himself. I’ve voted for a Democrat in MA when we had one religious extremist on the Republican side and I NEVER, otherwise, vote for a Democrat. Religion is everyone’s personal business. I expect it to influence political positions but I’ll vote on the political positions alone.
I read that Jesse Jackson once said that “I’d rather *watch* a sermon than listen to one”. A very astute comment IMO.
ALWAYS!
Which is absurd and sheer ignorance. Like as every choice you make is based upon what you truly belief, at least at the moment, all government laws historically flowed from religion, not atheism, which lacks any substantive moral standard on morality (which "do unto others.." actually requires to be sensible)
A politician who supports something that is morally contrary to his beliefs actually does not believe what he/she professes.
But if you want to exclude candidates that did not keep their religious positions to himself, then you should move to a socialist or communist country, rather than having to reject the Founders of American government, none of whom were atheists, and many were quite clear about their faith-basis:
Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation, New York, 3 October 1789 — By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation:
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor-- and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness. (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/GW/gw004.html) Washington's Farewell Addre
Washington's Farewell Address, 1797 — Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. . . . And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. (Farewell Address, 1797; http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp)Congressional Thanksgiving Proclamation
, 1782 — It being the indispensable duty of all nations, not only to offer up their supplications to Almighty God, the giver of all good, for His gracious assistance in a time of distress, but also in a solemn and public manner, to give Him praise for His goodness in general, and especially for great and signal interpositions of His Providence in their behalf;
John Adams (1735—July 4, 1826. Second President and one of the Founding Fathers. Assisted Thomas Jefferson in drafting the Declaration of Independence) — "No simple form of government can possible secure men against the violence of power...Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few." (An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, August 29, 1763)
• ...we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. (From a letter Adams wrote on 11 October 1798 to the officers of the First Brigade, Third Division, of the Massachusetts Militia).ion of the Militia of Massachusetts,” October 11, 1798)John Quincy Adams
(1767—1848: Sixth President of the United States and one of the Founding Fathers. Proficient in five languages before he was 18) — In the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior. The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity. (John Quincy Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport at Their Request on the Sixty-First Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1837 (Newburyport: Charles Whipple, 1837), pp. 5-6) Much moreAnd this testimony:
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859. French political thinker and historian; best known for his two volume, “Democracy in America”) — In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth...
The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live...
Thus religious zeal is perpetually warmed in the United States by the fires of patriotism. These men do not act exclusively from a consideration of a future life; eternity is only one motive of their devotion to the cause. If you converse with these missionaries of Christian civilization, you will be surprised to hear them speak so often of the goods of this world, and to meet a politician where you expected to find a priest.
They will tell you that "all the American republics are collectively involved with each other; if the republics of the West were to fall into anarchy, or to be mastered by a despot, the republican institutions which now flourish upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean would be in great peril. It is therefore our interest that the new states should be religious, in order that they may permit us to remain free." (Democracy in America, [New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1851), pp. 331, 332, 335, 336-7, 337; https://www.gutenberg.org/files/815/815-h/815-h.htm)