The recent attack ad "Godless" by Elizabeth Dole has really bothered me. Rather, it's the response to the ad that has bothered me. It has brought something up that that I have been bothered by for quite some time, but I haven't known how to say it. In fact, I'm still not sure how to say it, but I'm furious, and I feel I need to say something.
I think we can all agree that the ad is ridiculous, but that's not what this is about. It's about the response. Everywhere I've seen a response to this ad, people are saying its "disgusting," "vile," etc., but they are passing this judgment because Kay Hagan is not, in fact, an atheist. Does that mean this sort of ad would be acceptable if she were?
I think I just got a feeling of what it has been like for American Muslims seeing attacks on Obama for being a Muslim. It was a sudden wave of anger and disappointment. Angry that someone is saying that I am ineligible to hold public office, and disappointment that everyone seems to agree.
I am an atheist, and I am by no means naive. I know that currently, America is in no place where they would elect an atheist to the office of the president, but I never thought you would be able to get away with such a vile attack on such a large portion of the US without at least someone saying something. The US census Bureau had the percentage of non-religious Americans at 15% in 2001, which was almost double the value from 1990. For comparison, 13.4% of the US population (2006) was African American.
I am consistently shocked how people overlook our founding fathers, who were predominantly Deists, and some of our greatest presidents, like Lincoln who were atheists, and say that atheists are somehow unfit to serve in public office. To me the scandal with Dole's ad is not that she lied about her opponent, that happens all the time in political campaigns. To me the scandal is that Elizabeth Dole thinks, in contrast to the Constitution, that I, and millions of others like me, are ineligible to serve our country simply because we believe in one less god than everyone else.