SALLY QUINN'S IGNORANT POST INSULTED MORE THAN JUST ATHEISTS

Mitt Romney mentioned God in Wednesday night's debate; Barack Obama didn't. This inspire Sally Quinn to essentially declare that atheists are non-citizens at The Washington Post's On Faith blog:

This is a religious country. Part of claiming your citizenship is claiming a belief in God, even if you are not Christian.. We've got the Creator in our Declaration of Independence. We’ve got "In God We Trust" on our coins. We've got "one nation under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance. And we say prayers in the Senate and the House of Representatives to God.

An atheist could never get elected dog catcher, much less president. (Democratic Rep. Pete Stark of California is a nontheist but doesn't talk much about it).

Up until now, the idea of being American and believing in God were synonymous.

But atheists aren't the only people who should be insulted by Quinn's ignorant post. Here's her lede:

When Mitt Romney mentioned the "Creator" in the debate Wednesday, he owned it. "We're all children of the same God," he said.

That's about 85 percent of the country he was talking to. That should have been President Obama's constituency but he let Romney have it as he let Romney have the debate.

"That should have been President Obama's constituency"? What does she mean by that?

I think what she means is that Barack Obama identifies himself as a Christian -- a real Christian, not, y'know, a Mormon. I think what Sally Quinn is saying is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is not really a Christian church.

I don't have a dog in this particular hunt -- I'm an atheist, so it's Quinn decision to read me out of America that insults me personally. Nevertheless, I'm used to that. The entire mainstream D.C.-based political establishment does that.

But I think Quinn has insulted the Mormons, and even if I don't have any great love for the Mormons, I think the Mormon church deserve the same status as other Christian denominations.

I thought it was mostly religious-right hatemongers who felt this way about Mormons. Guess Quinn's no different.

(Also see BooMan and Wonkette.)