First-ever polls comparing conservative and progressive activists are revealing to what degree these groups diverge when it comes to issue priorities, issue positions, and beliefs about scripture.

While the majority of both groups say religion is important in their lives, for example, they have strikingly different beliefs about scripture. Nearly half of conservatives (48 percent) believe scripture to be the literal word of God, while only three percent of progressives shared the same view, according to the 2009 Religious Activist Surveys conducted by the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron in partnership with Public Religion Research.

While the vast majority of conservatives identify abortion (83 percent) and same-sex marriage (65 percent) as the most important priorities among eight issues listed in the surveys, less than 10 percent of progressive religious activists called abortion and same-sex marriage the “most important” issues. Instead, progressive activists identify poverty (74 percent), health care (67 percent), environment (56 percent), jobs/economy (48 percent), and the Iraq war (45 percent) as the highest priorities.

On abortion, nearly all conservative religious activists opposed legalization of the practice (95 percent). In sharp contrast, the overwhelming majority of progressive religious activists support some form of legal abortions (80 percent). Twenty-six percent of progressives say abortion should be legal in all cases and 54 percent say it should be legal in most cases.

Regarding same-sex marriage, conservatives overwhelmingly (82 percent) oppose both same-sex marriage and civil unions. By contrast, 59 percent of progressives support same-sex marriage, and a third say the law should recognize legal agreements between same-sex couples but define marriage as a union between a man and woman.

The surveys also found a significantly different makeup of conservative and progressive religious activists. Conservatives are mostly composed of evangelical Protestants (54 percent), Roman Catholics (35 percent), and mainline Protestants (9 percent).  Meanwhile, progressive activists are made up of mainline Protestants (44 percent), Roman Catholics (17 percent), evangelical Protestants (10 percent), and interfaith bodies and groups (12 percent).