They’ve been gaining for decades, to the point where our once heavily Protestant legislature is now only roughly as Protestant as the population itself: 54.7 percent in Congress versus 51.3 percent of Americans overall. For Catholics it’s 30.1 percent versus 23.9 overall and for Jews 8.4 percent versus 1.7 percent.

Differences become much more pronounced at the party level. While 70.8% of congressional Republicans are Protestant, fewer than half of Democrats (43.6%) belong to Protestant denominational families. On the other hand, the share of Democratic members who are Catholic (36.6%) is much greater than the number of Catholic GOP members (21%). And while Jews make up 13.4% of all congressional Democrats (including two independents who tend to caucus with the Democrats), they account for just 0.9% of congressional Republicans, with one Jewish Republican in the House and one in the Senate…

Congress, like the nation as a whole, has become much less Protestant and more religiously diverse. Indeed, the total percentage of Protestants in Congress has dropped from 74.1% in 1961 to 54.7% today, which roughly tracks with broader religious demographic trends during this period. As recently as the early 1980s, nearly two-thirds of Americans identified themselves as Protestants. In the recent Landscape Survey, the number of self-identified Protestants dropped to 51.3%.

Eyeball the tables at the link, especially the first one, and you’ll see that representation is remarkably proportionate by religious demographic, with no spread exceeding 6.7 percent — except for one subgroup. Can you guess which it is? Exit question: We can spare two or three seats in the Senate for a single family but we can’t set one aside for heathen nation? I’m ready to serve, if need be.