Newsflash: Willard Romney is Hostile to Atheists

I'm getting so tired of writing about these stupid douchehounds and their fundy fucknuttery. How many bloody posts have I written about GOP presidential candidates and religion this week—like three nonillion?! Shit. Someone more cynical than I might suggest that these dipsticks' policies have fallen so appallingly short of anything America needs that a Battle of Who Loves the Baby Jesus Most is all they've got left. Ahem.

Anyway, over at TPM, Eric Kleefeld reports that Willard's spokesperson won't say if atheists have a place in America. Not in Willard's administration, but in all of America:

A spokesman for the Mitt Romney campaign is thus far refusing to say whether Romney sees any positive role in America for atheists and other non-believers, after Election Central inquired about the topic yesterday.

It's a sign that Romney may be seeking to submerge evangelical distaste for Mormonism by uniting the two groups together in a wider culture war. Romney's speech has come under some criticism, even from conservatives like David Brooks and Ramesh Ponnuru, for positively mentioning many prominent religions but failing to include anything positive about atheists and agnostics.

Indeed, the only mentions of non-believers were very much negative. "It is as if they're intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They're wrong," Romney said, being met by applause from the audience.

Even Peggy Noonan, who was, in general, gushingly complimentary about Willard's "Come to Jesus (Christ of Latter Day Saints)" speech, noted that his "one significant mistake" was his failure to "include nonbelievers in his moving portrait of the great American family. … Why did Mr. Romney not do the obvious thing and include them? My guess: It would have been reported, and some idiots would have seen it and been offended that this Romney character likes to laud atheists. And he would have lost the idiot vote."

And, as Ahab notes at If I Ran the Zoo, "if Peg knows anything, it's that a Republican's gonna need the idiot vote."

So, basically, the presumption is that Willard's being hostile to atheists, agnostics, nonbelievers, and/or wev in an attempt to create a bond with conservative evangelicals forged in the shadow of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," and also to retain the votes of the Idiot Brigade who won't vote for anyone if they accidentally give the appearance of regarding the Soulless Sodomites of the Secular Left as human beings deserving of their citizenship.

Last I checked, according to the GOP playbook, that's just called "good politics."