Anyone familiar with North Carolina Republican Elizabeth Dole already knows she is a dismal failure as a senator. Dole failed to promptly set up offices for North Carolina citizens to contact her when she was first elected in 2002 and there are some questions about whether she’s even maintaining a primary residence in North Carolina. Since then, she’s shuffled through the Senate, (thankfully) muffing up Republican Party fundraising duties and failing to introduce significant legislation. Instead of offering leadership, Elizabeth Dole has fallen in line with the most extreme conservative elements in the Senate, voting at their beck and call. Dole has voted to undercut American freedom by voting for the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, the Protect America Act and the FISA Amendments Act. Given the opportunity, she has declined to take action to resolve the problems of child soldiers, land mines and cluster bombs. Dole has also supported legislation to punish citizens who bring lawsuits against the government when their First Amendment freedom from religion has been violated. She’s a pretty embarrassing representative for a state that has been doing a lot to move forward from old Southern to more cosmopolitan.
Dole’s latest insult to the name of North Carolina has been to suggest that having social contact with people who don’t believe in God is “horrifying” and unbecoming for a resident of North Carolina. Yes, it’s true. Elizabeth Dole noticed that her Democratic rival for the Senate this year, Kay Hagan, had plans to meet with Wendy Kaminer, who is on the board of the Secular Coalition of America. She noticed…
…and then she pounced. Elizabeth Dole sent out a press release announcing Kay Hagan’s sin of meeting an avowed atheist:
On September 15th, Kay Hagan is heading to Boston, Massachusetts to attend a fundraiser for her Senate campaign. What may surprise mainstream North Carolinians is that the fundraiser will be in the home of leading anti religion activists Wendy Kaminer and her lawyer husband Woody Kaplan — who is an advisor to the “Godless Americans Political Action Committee.”
…Kaminer is also an advisory board member (Woody is the chairman) of The Secular Coalition for America which is “the national lobby for atheists, humanists, freethinkers and other nontheistic Americans with the unique mission of protecting their civil rights.” (Secular Coalition For America, Press Release, 1/16/08)
AAaaaah! A Senator! Meeting with a person! On a group! That is dedicated to protecting CIVIL RIGHTS! Waaaaaaaaaaaauuugh! Run away!
But wait, don’t run away just yet. There’s more to Dole’s histrionic press release:
You can tell a lot about a person by their friends and these are friends most North Carolinians would not be comfortable having over for dinner. … Now Hagan has added anti-religion activists from Boston Massachusetts to the list…. Kay Hagan does not represent the values of this state; she is a Trojan Horse for a long list of wacky left-wing outside groups bent on policies that would horrify most North Carolinians if they knew about it
Yes, there it is. According to Elizabeth Dole, it would apparently horrify most North Carolinians to know that Senate candidate Kay Hagan had the intention of meeting an atheist — an atheist who believes in civil rights.
You know, I used to live in North Carolina. I know a lot of people in North Carolina. Elizabeth Dole has just insulted all of them with the vocal assumption that they are bigots who cannot possibly stomach the idea of anyone meeting with an atheist. Elizabeth Dole owes an apology to each and every North Carolinian who couldn’t care less about someone’s religious affiliation.
If this sort of behavior pisses you off, don’t hit the wall. Do something more productive. Send a contribution to Kay Hagan’s campaign as a way of sending a message to Elizabeth Dole that her bigotry is old hat… and as a way of helping to shove that sad, tired, lazy, hateful and mean-spirited Dole out of the Senate and into retirement.
