Evangelical Realism

Ed Brayton makes some excellent points about the predictable complaints from the Religious Right about how criticizing Huckabee’s religious beliefs is like mocking Hillary for being a woman or Obama for being black.

He seems to just presume that ridiculing someone’s race or gender is equivalent of ridiculing someone’s religious beliefs, but that presumption is clearly false. He is committing a category error here. The difference is that religion is an idea (more properly a set of ideas) and ideas, unlike race or gender, deserve criticism. Someone’s race or gender can’t be wrong or absurd, but their ideas certainly can.

Recommended reading.