Wouldn't surprise me at all, given that there are still states in the US that have anti-atheist laws on their books. There was one just recently where an atheist was elected to public office and his opponent tried to keep him out based on an anti-atheist law. Which is unconstitutional.
Let's face it, something like 90-95% of people in the US profess to some sort of religion. It would be tantamount to political suicide for politicians to deny those beliefs. Now if we could only convince them to behave like they believe....