President-Elect Barack Obama was subject to this line of reasoning for months, with the quiet rumors that he might be a Muslim, or that he was a bad Christian because he attended Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church, or because he believes in abortion rights, and so on.
Atheist blogger Alonzo Fyfe wrote last week that Democrats would not stand up to the religious bigotry directed at Obama or their candidates. "[Obama] could not fire back a response that said, 'How dare you sink so low as to accuse me of being a Muslim.' That would not have been politically correct, and would have earned the (justified) ire of much of the population," Fyfe wrote.
Obama insisted throughout the campaign that he was not a Muslim, and that he was a Christian. It was only in the last month of the campaign that anyone asked the real question: So what if he was? Colin Powell asked it when he endorsed Obama.
Actual Non-Christians Did Well
Members of Congress who are not Christian also did well despite the bigotry directed at them. Pete Stark of California, who "came out" as an athiest last year was re-elected.
Muslim Keith Ellison of Minnesota was also reelected despite the bigotry directed at him. Glenn Beck famously asked him "Prove to me you're not working with our enemies" on his (now cancelled) CNN Headline News show. When word came out that Ellison would swear his oath on a Qu'ran, Rep. Virgil Goode of Virginia sent a letter to his constituents warning that a lax immigration policy could lead to more Muslims immigrating into the country, and more being elected to Congress.
Virgil Goode got fewer votes in this election than his opponent, Tom Perriello. As of this writing he hasn't yet conceded and the Virginia Board of Elections has yet to certify the results.
Hagan and 'Godless Americans'
Arguably the most famous use of anti-non-christian bigotry was in the Senate race in North Carolina between incumbent Elizabeth Dole (R) and challenger Kay Hagan (D). Dole ran an ad accusing Hagan of attending a fundraiser funded by Godless Americans PAC, and the ad ended with the voice of a woman (implied to be Hagan) shouting "There is no God!"
Hagan is a Presbyterian and made an ad saying so. Dole responded with another ad saying that Hagan's Christianity was not the question. The question was whether "you" would associate with godless Americans.
Hagan won that election and Dole lost, arguably because of those ads.
The voters rejected many things, but they most certainly were repulsed by the bigotry in the Dole ads and saw past the bigotry directed at Obama. To be fair, Christian bigots got their way on things like banning gay marriage in Florida, Arizona and California, but they failed to convince enough people that Barack Obama was a Muslim.
And they failed to convince anyone that being Muslim in America is a bad thing.
Robert O'Connor - I am a professional amateur. Everything I do, I do it out of love, not money. I'm also flat broke.
