God knows!   ;-) (if you'll excuse the expression)

I think you would have to somehow remake the psychology of a couple hundred million Americans before you could do that in the USA.

As long as your politicians think that raising divisive religious issues will get them votes, they'll do it. Ours would do it too...if they thought it would get them a lot of votes. But it wouldn't. ;-) Politicians are the same everywhere in that respect. If they think a dirty tactic will get them votes, they'll use it. They will always wave the red flag at the public bull in hopes of getting it to charge in the direction they desire.

Canadian politicians do that too, in their own way, it's just that they don't play the "religion" card when they do it, that's all.