Just when you thought America's heartland was lost forever to the Christian right, a new study proves that all those wholesome red-staters love a good shoot-em-up sex romp even more than us Gotham heathens.

The results of the 1,000-person survey were presented Wednesday at Variety's Integrate '05 conference, and describe a bit of a conflicted spiritual population. For example, of those 300+ respondents who described themselves as "very religious," 55 percent agreed with the statement that "the movie industry is partially responsible for the moral decay of our society." Almost half that many also said they would be likely to take in a film rated R for sexuality, while, as Gabriel Snyder reports:

Perhaps the most surprising finding in the study, though, was when MarketCast measured for doctrine within religion. Those who were the most conservative in their religious beliefs were actually more likely to have seen the violent films than those who characterized themselves as more liberal. While 18% of those who were liberal in their doctrine had seen the violent R-rated films, 29% of the conservatives said they had seen these violent movies.