In a 1958 poll of Americans, only 18 percent of respondents said they would vote for a generally well-qualified presidential candidate nominated by their political party if that person happened to be an atheist. In 2015, that number has jumped to 58 percent.
Yet, even today, 40 percent of respondents say they would not vote for an atheist.
As I wrote in a 2012 post, this seems to boil down to distrust. And that distrust stems from an assumption about the relationship between morality and religious belief. If immoral behavior is only averted by religious belief ÔÇö the thought goes ÔÇö then for atheists, anything is permitted.