If you haven’t already encountered it, I urge you to take a look at a new study about the values and politics of Generation Y, which may be loosely defined as those born between 1980 and 2000 (though the report really only covers only the adult members of this generation, those currently 18 to 25 years of age). The report, with the somewhat gimmicky title of “OMG: How Generation Y is Redefining Faith in the iPod Era,” was written by Anna Greenberg and is based on a large-scale survey with oversamples among Jews, blacks, Asians, Hispanics and Muslims, as well as supplementary analyses of Census and other data, all conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.

Much of the report focuses on the detailed religious and civic attitudes of Generation Y adults and I won’t go into those findings here—read the instructive report to get the full picture. But there are some broader findings in the report that are worth highlighting.

Generation Y is extraordinarily diverse in a race-ethnic sense. Only 61 percent of Generation Y adults are white; 15 percent are black, 4 percent are Asian, and 17 percent are Hispanic.

Generation Y is more secular and less Christian. Almost a quarter (23 percent) have no religious preference or are agnostic/atheist, 4 percent are Jewish or Muslim, and another 7 percent are other non-Christian; only 62 percent identify themselves with some Christian faith.

Generation Y is at the leading edge of what Chris Bowers has pointed out is an extremely fast-growing demographic: the non-Christian coalition. Between 1990 and 2001, according to CUNY’s American Religious Identification Survey, non-Christians grew by 84 percent (from 20 million to 37 million adults), including an astonishing increase of 106 percent (from 14 million to 29 million) among seculars.

Generation Y is very liberal on social issues. A majority (53 percent) flat-out support allowing gay marriage. And 63 percent say women should have the legal right to choose an abortion.

Generation Y is unusually liberal in an ideological sense. More Generation Y adults say they are liberal (31 percent) than say that they are conservative (30 percent).

Generation Y leans strongly Democratic. Generation Y adults give Democrats an eleven-point edge on party identification (39 percent to 28 percent).

Of course, there’s no guarantee Generation Y adults will stay as Democratic and liberal as they are now—change is possible (but much less likely after the age of 30, which is not so far away for the leading edge of this generation).

But they’re off to a good start! If Generation Y is the future of American politics, their relatively diverse, secular, liberal, and Democratic character can only make those on the center-left smile, and the conservative establishment in Washington scowl.

Ruy Teixeira is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress. This article originally appeared in the May 4, 2005 edition of Public Opinion Watch.