# In the US, could an agnostic, atheist, and/or gay become president?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-us-could-an-agnostic-atheist-and-or-gay-become-president/777875>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [January 22, 2017, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-us-could-an-agnostic-atheist-and-or-gay-become-president/777875 "2017-01-22T21:33:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-us-could-an-agnostic-atheist-and-or-gay-become-president/777875/41 "2017-01-23T21:20:22Z")

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> [@astorian](#):
>
> Bear in mind, in the USA, people vote directly for the chief executive. In most other democracies, people vote only for their local legislative/parliamentary representative. The chief executive is the leader of the majority party…

Well, mostly, there is the Electoral college, …

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**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-us-could-an-agnostic-atheist-and-or-gay-become-president/777875/42 "2017-01-23T21:58:41Z")

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> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> Many of the early Presidents were Deists.

I suspect that many of the same voters for whom Christian faith is a litmus test are either unaware of this, or subscribe to a revisionist notion of our Founding Fathers as being solid Christians, one and all. (Except for Franklin, because he was clearly a long-haired French-loving hippie. 😉 )

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