WASHINGTON (CNS) — As seven Republican candidates for president prepared for a June 13 debate in New Hampshire and others waited in the wings, there were signs that religion will play as big a role in the 2012 election as it has in other recent campaigns.

Many of the declared or potential candidates lined up in Washington June 3-4 to address a “strategy briefing” sponsored by the Faith & Freedom Coalition, an organization headed by Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed, and to pledge their commitment to the coalition’s views on abortion, same-sex marriage and similar social issues.

Polling in early June by Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., showed that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney had more support among Republican or Republican-leaning independent voters than any other GOP candidate, with 25 percent. Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor who is not an official candidate, received support from 15 percent of the poll respondents, with businessman Herman Cain at 9 percent.

But another part of the Quinnipiac survey offered less promising information to the Romney campaign. Asked to assess their comfort level with the faith of presidential candidates, 36 percent of the poll respondents said they felt somewhat uncomfortable or very uncomfortable with a Mormon candidate. Only 13 percent said they would be uncomfortable with a Catholic candidate, while 59 percent said they would not be comfortable with a Muslim candidate and 60 percent said a candidate who was an atheist would make them uncomfortable.