Ok, show of hands here. How many readers of this blog believe that Sarah Palin's religious beliefs are part of her unfitness for national office?

I would prefer that this country were as secularist in temperment as Western Europe, but it is not. The role religion should play in the public sphere is the source of bitter but genuine, and therefore legitimate political controversy. Hagan, despite her own religious beliefs, has taken money from a group that advocates a much lower profile, if not outright absence, of religion in public life. Whomever in North Carolina believes that this is God's Country and ought to be recognized as such by the government has a perfect right to vote against her if they don't like her political friends. I personally think that belief is barbarous nonsense, but, the First Amendment being what it is, nobody appointed me censor.

That's really hard to say because a) we don't really know her beliefs, b) we don't know what role her religion has played in her political views.

I have a serious problem with someone representing me that says they "know" God exists.

Believe it all you want, but do not claim to have knowledge without proof.

I know God exists. When Sarah Palin speaks I'm sure I can hear him laughing.

Article six of the U.S. Constitution explicitly states that it is illegal to apply a religious test to a candidate for office.

ok

Jack, you are confusing free speech with despicable public argument. It really has almost nothing to do with religion, but everything to do with fighting fair. An insignificant idiot can say what he will, but perhaps -- once again -- people who ask for your vote might actually have to meet a reasonable minimum. This is incredibly refreshing. In the years since Gingrich, especially on the crest of Karl Rove, we seemed to have reached new lows.

Saxby Chambliss' totally deplorable campaign against Max Cleland, suggested we have no limits. The lawyer who asked Sen. McCarthy if he had no shame in the 50s was an anachronism. But I don't think I'm alone in my disgust with this sort of politics.

It's gratifying to find out that there is a limit, and since Liddy Dole seems to have crossed it, she deserves to be called out.

thdcnx:

Jack, you are confusing free speech with despicable public argument. It really has almost nothing to do with religion, but everything to do with fighting fair. An insignificant idiot can say what he will, but perhaps -- once again -- people who ask for your vote might actually have to meet a reasonable minimum.

Fairness, I'm afraid, is nonsense. The only limit we have is the unwillingness of the voting public to accept arguments that appeal to what people like you and I consider their worst impulses. If such arguments work, they will be used by those who would rather gain office by using them than lose by not. No democracy can rise higher than the general cultural level of its electorate, and ours is for the most part ignorant, emotional, superstitious and resentfully egalitarian.