Kerry is a Catholic

You know, reading World O'Crap make fun of yet another "pastor" sit in judgment on John Kerry as Jesus specifically told people not to do, I realized that there was another reason that the Bush campaign pushes the "deny Kerry communion" crap every chance they get. Yes, one reason is to try and lure Catholics into voting against one of their own.

But the other reason is probably to remind his Bible-thumping base, the evangelicals that Rove is betting this election on, that Kerry is a Mary-worshipping, unsaved, Pope-following Catholic every single chance they get. People that have the pleasure of living outside of the Bible belt may not know how ugly anti-Catholic prejudice in this country is, but I can assure you it's alarming. The publicity surrounding the priest molestations is only increasing it, as it fits a lot Bible belt-er's suspicions that Catholics have orgies and drink blood. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but not by as much as I'd like it to be. I can see a situation where the base is activated by reminding them that not voting might put a dreaded Catholic back in office.

Edited to add: Let's play Six Degrees of Separation in regards to keeping Kerry's religion front and center in this campaign, in response to a commenter who thinks that since Gillespie is Catholic, BushCo would somehow be above flogging anti-Catholic prejudice to gain votes.

Fox News , the network that ran endless stories on Kerry's Catholicism, is run by Roger Ailes, who was the media advisor for Richard Nixon during the 1968 campaign, who was a bitter old shit after losing in 1960 to JFK despite the anti-Catholic prejudice that was a big feature in this campaign against the Senator from Massachusettes. My, my, my, our memories are short in this country. What are the chances that the all the Republicans that are in power now who worked for Richard Nixon didn't think, even once, that it might be useful to draw attention to Kerry's Catholicism?