I've been personally attacked by the Republican party - again.
Earlier this month, I wrote a diary about the Elizabeth Dole Senate campaign, which, as it fades in the polls, decided to make a play for the bigot vote by running openly prejudiced ads calling Kay Hagan a friend of atheists. Now the National Republican Senatorial Committee has jumped into the fray, releasing a web ad that repeats the bigotry being pushed by the Dole campaign.
My site, Daylight Atheism, gets attacked again, as does the Secular Coalition for America and the Godless Americans Political Action Committee - because we're all a bunch of evil liberals who want to ban Christmas, don't you know. And since Kay Hagan once attended a fundraiser held by a member of the Secular Coalition, that shows she's really on the atheists' side and will do our nefarious bidding.
In reality, Kay Hagan is an elder of the Presbyterian Church, and assuredly not an atheist. But, like McCain's apparent implication that Obama can't be an Arab because he's a good family man, it's proper to ask: Even if she was, so what? Is an atheist any less of an American? Is an atheist any less able to uphold the Constitution? Is an atheist any less able to love their country and seek to do it proud?
Well, we evidently know the Republicans' answer to that question. Although this really isn't anything we didn't already know, it's nice to have confirmation that the Republican Party itself, and not just one particular member of its Senate caucus, is comfortable with embracing hate to pander to the Christian-bigot vote. The real issue is, will the rest of the country agree? The time is soon approaching when we'll find out...