[maxerickson]

Why? Fundamentalists are noisy, but they aren't a majority. Catholics are the largest group, probably followed by the various types of non practitioners (I'm including atheists and people that "aren't sure" together there, I think it's fair to say that "not sure" is a ways away from fundamentalist). It's harder to sort out the protestants, but the more moderate "mainline" groups certainly have more influence than the fundamentalist groups, even if they don't quite outnumber them (but they are at least similar in number).

The type of news that fundamentalists end up making also isn't all that discouraging, they are usually losing court cases where they tried to inject their beliefs into public life.

[fixedd]

I guess it depends on where you draw the line on fundamentalism. I live in the Bible Belt and I'd argue that, at least, the Southern Baptists should be seen as a Fundamentalist organization. That locks down the majority of the people in the SE-quadrant of the continental US.

Also depending on how you draw your lines, the Catholics aren't even remotely close to #1 status. About 24% of Americans are Catholic while about 51% are Protestants. I'll agree that it's a little iffy, but I'm willing to count the Protestants as a singular group.

Perhaps I'm just jaded because I live in the land of "lets turn the US into a Christian theocracy".

[maxerickson]

Yeah, the first step of the discussion is drawing some lines.

When I said the Catholics were the largest group, I was treating the protestants as separate groups. Mostly because if you are treating "fundamentalist" as an axis, the protestants don't really group together. They even tend to be somewhat polarized across that axis.

[parasubvert]

If you've been watching Pope Francis lately, it's providing a strong contrast against fundamentalism, which he has even decried as a disease in the church that needs to end.