So religion is sexist, is it? Read the Old Testament (I can't speak for the Qur'an, but I think it's not dissimilar, despite the image that Islam has today) and you will probably find that there are no sexist laws in it. Perhaps you can find an example to prove me wrong, but I think that the laws are only made within the particular culture of the Ancient Hebrews, which had specific notions about the different roles of men and women. This is not to say that God wanted everyone from then on to have the same ideas. IMO, If you like, the law allows for the ideas held by the Ancient Hebrews, but does not prescribe them for others.
The old testament is plenty sexist. "Thou shalt not covet another man's wife"? what about husband? The laws were clearly addressed to the men, because they, essentially, owned the women. In fact, even today, the extreme-Orthodox prayer exists, thanking the Lord that you were not born a (something, I forget), that you were not born a gentile, and that you were not born a woman. It is Eve who is decieved by the serpent, it is Lot's wife who glances back, not him, and so on.

Now for Christianity, which is, after all, the religion most in question here. Look at how Jesus talked to women. While everyone else around him treated women as second class citizens with preconceived notions as to their worth as human beings, Jesus treated women with respect and afforded them a dignity which society did not. The story of the Samaritan woman at the well shows that Jesus went against both the sexist and racist attitudes of his culture. Christianity abhors racism, sexism, and all other forms of oppression. I wish I didn't need to say that - surely no-one could so grossly misunderstand Christianity? Unfortunately, in a country where Bible-belters have in the past enslaved and hanged blacks, and treated women as lower-class beings, it does need to be said.
And yet, according to the New Testament, women should be subservient to their husbands, and shouldn't even speak in church.

The cultural attitudes that certain practisers of a religion have cannot be linked inextricably to that religion. What people worship on a Sunday/Saturday/Friday is a separate thing from how they treat different groups of people, although it shouldn't be because they should treat them properly. Just because Christians in the Southern states are often racist, it doesn't mean that Christians anywhere else are racist, or that Christianity contains racism anywhere in its doctrine. It's just a coincidence.
But hey, if it's -in the scripture-...

I see what you mean by saying that people living in some parts of the Southern US are likely to a) call themselves Christians and b) be racist/sexist, but neither is the cause of the other. It is a big logical error to assume that two things that often happen together are causally linked: sometimes, both share a common cause.
Yes: the unquestioning, tradition-based, hyperconservative, antiprogressive mentality of the general region.


Yet each man kills the thing he loves--
By each let this be heard...
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!