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re: "Atheism is a religion"
gbaikie — (archived)

"Atheists and agnostics are only politically active these days because of statements like Romney's and this bizarre need for Christians in America to impose their culture upon all of us. From my standpoint, it all stinks of major insecurity, the knowledge that the beliefs of God-based faith are so shaky and based on illogical magic, that the only way to keep it going in an evolvingly intellectual society is to force feed it to the public and try to scare people with afterlife horror tales."

"only politically active these days", if you mean by these days- the last few decades, or even centuries, you might be making some sense. But Carter was elected President by openly speaking about his Christian faith.

Here is a recent quote about former President Carter:
“Nobody in this country has been guided more by the Christian faith than President Carter,” declared the Rev. Susan Henry-Crowe, dean of the chapel and religious life, in introducing Carter.
http://www.emorywheel.com/detail.php?n=24476

But that wasn't what I was looking for exactly. Hmm:

"By placing Carter within the context of the rightward shift in the American body politic during the late 1970s, this article shows that his presidency was a catalyst for the re-emergence of Christian conservatism as a dynamic political force in the late twentieth century."
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5050806/Jimmy-Carter-the-re-emergence.html

More analysis:

"This article will extend the current re-evaluation of the Carter presidency through a detailed examination of the enduring impact of his evangelical Christian faith upon modern American political discourse. Carter successfully reawakened faith-based politics but, because his faith did not exactly mirror the religious and political agenda of the disparate groups that make up the religious conservative movement within the United States, that newly awakened force within American politics ultimately used its power to replace him with Ronald Reagan, a president who more carefully articulated their agenda. As this article will show, the key issue that marked the intrusion of highly contentious religious-cultural issues into the political debate was abortion."

blackwell-synergy.com

More:
"Look at how he was elected in the first place. In the early and decisive days of his campaign, he spoke the language of religion and morality far more, and far more effectively, than he spoke the language of politics. He spoke openly and convincingly about his Christian faith--and he managed to do this in a way that was inclusive and tolerant. Nowadays every politician seems to feel obligated to talk about being born again, just as in decades past politicians seemed to feel obligated to have themselves photographed wearing an Indian chief's bonnet. But Carter was Christian before Christian was cool. Carter was the first and is still the only candidate for President who ever used the word "love"---in its specifically religious and Christian sense--in virtually every campaign speech he delivered....."
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/character/essays/carter.html

But it isn't Carter who is really to blame for it, he in a sense was using a somewhat traditional approach which he maybe spice up a bit to reflect a current political reality, instead it was the liberal courts which did the most to energize the Christian vote.

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