I think there has always been a fairly large portion of the population that was non-religious -- but in the past there was more social pressure to keep those beliefs quiet and go along with one's community peers. But with the internet, many people are now finding they are not alone in those non-religious beliefs, and that gives them the courage to express their own disbelief (especially among the young).
But just because about 30% say they are non-religious, that doesn't mean the other 70% are highly religious people. The percentage who identify a "very" religious is only 41.4% (or just a little more than four out of ten people). The rest (29.2%) say they are only "moderately" religious. And those are not just christian numbers, but include all religions. With numbers like these it simply doesn't make sense to write the christian religion into law -- as the fundamentalists want to do.
The chart below show the percentage of people claiming to be non-religious in each state (and the District of Columbia). Note that less people claim to be non-religious in the South -- probably because independent thinking is not as highly valued in the South as in other parts of the country.
And here is the latest Public Religion Research Institute findings on religious beliefs by age group. Note that the non-religious increases with each generation.