From the insightful Digby comes this insightly insight:
Why do the vast majority secularists vote for the Democrats? Could it possibly be for the same reason that African Americans do? Could it be that the Republican Party is so implicitly or explicitly religiously intolerant that they have no place in it?
They don’t even need to be intolerant, though…just being implicitly and explicitly religious, period, full stop, is sufficiently off-putting. The intolerance is the creamy rich arsenic-laced frosting layered thickly on top of the putrefying fruitcake of superstitious dogma—excuse me if I’d rather not have a taste. I think our interests diverge from those of the religious African Americans because, if Obama is any example, they reject the intolerance but savor the religion.
By the way, take a look at this map of the state-by-state distribution of unbelievers, also from Digby’s post. Typically, “no religion” is the third most popular choice in most states, with a few exceptions (I’m very proud of my home state of Washington.) So why do politicians so studiously avoid courting that common demographic?*
*Rhetorical question…in a winner-take-all game, third place is no place, and it’s not as if the godless form a coherent bloc anyway.