Today on Fresh Air, belief.net founder Stephen Waldman brought up a couple of points that I haven't heard talked about that should scare the begeezus out of any potential fence-sitters...
Mr. Waldman, trying hard to be even-handed despite his "list of 75 questions that he would ask Sarah Palin" (in which, "What were you thinking while Reverend Moothy was trying to cast out witches?" "wasn't even in the top 10") mentioned as very scary things the fact that a) Sarah Palin believes her natural gas pipeline is a mission from God (nothing new there), and b) the fact that she created a Christian Heritage Week as governor of Alaska.
This second point was new to me: that Alaska is officially making it policy to discriminate against Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Buddhists, etc. by endorsing that one particular religion. Additionally, Palin committed a huge no-no in Waldman's book (literally) by invoking the Christianity of the founding fathers in the wording of the proclamation.
more after the fold (involving McCain)...
The second big thing to talk about (at least, in my humble opinion) was the following, from an interview with beliefnet.com:
A recent poll found that 55 percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation. What do you think?
John McCain: I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.
Despite what the poll says about the respondents, it was Waldman's contention (and I think you'd agree) that even most Christian fundamentalists would try to enrobe that sentiment in at least a little nuance, to avoid sounding crazy, and that McCain simply can't handle that type of question.
Anyway, I sure hope that questions about faith come up in the next few debates!