Via Adam Serwer, the Atlantic’s Chris Good notes a correlation between church attendance and support for torture in a new Pew study:

A combined 54 percent of at-least-weekly church-goers say torture is either often or sometimes justifiable; for those who attend monthly or a few times a year, that figure is 51 percent; for those who do not attend, it is 42 percent.

Evangelicals, according to the survey, are more prone to saying torture is justifiable than members of the nation’s other two main Christian groups: so-called "mainline" Protestants and white, non-Hispanic Catholics. Unaffiliateds–a conglomerated group of atheists, agnostics, and those who say their religion is "nothing in particular–support torture the least: 40 percent say it’s justifiable often or sometimes.

 An emailer notes to Good, "I’m hoping they aren’t approving of torture for the sake of causing pain, but rather find it necessary in order to protect the country from attack." Uh, that’s more Christlike? You can torture people when you think you have good reason? Like Adam says, remember this the next time the right talks about the collapse of moral values in America heralded by two people of the same gender who seek to spend the rest of their lives together in matrimony.

Crossposted to The Streak.