That’s because some of the stuff in that thread was pure bigotry. It’s pretty much inevitable whenever religion is discussed here (or anywhere on the internet) that there will be a fair share of anti-religious bigotry. This is distinct from anyone who thinks religion is stupid/harmful/whatever and certainly distinct from acknowledging the obvious hypocrisies that come up. The bigotry is always amplified when then ugly union of politics and religion comes up.
Living in Georgia, the attacks against Warnock are ubiquitous and pretty ugly. The mailers are out of control. At least Purdue has backed off the anti-Semitic ads this time around (so far), so let’s celebrate the progress.
I’m not sure if I’d call the attacks against Warnock religiously-based even though they’re using his sermons and support of Jeremiah Wright. The attacks are wholly dishonest, but I still wouldn’t characterize the attacks as specifically religiously bigoted or religious discrimination.
From one perspective, it sounds like they’re attacking him for actually preaching the Gospel, but it isn’t religiously based in the same way the ACB stuff was. The attacks are about fabricated versions of his politics as revealed through out of context clips of his preaching. They aren’t attacking his religion so much as using his public words to construct an anti-American straw man. The stuff that came up about ACB involved complete and dishonest misreadings of the practices of her religious group wrapped in old fashioned anti-Catholic bigoted tropes. It was drawing conclusions based specifically on religious affiliations.
ACB was deemed unqualified by a few on that thread because of her religious affiliations and beliefs; Warnock has been deemed anti-American by his opponent because his public words — that happen to largely be sermons — can be edited to sound so. Maybe it’s too fine of a line to draw, but I see them as different kinds of ugliness and dishonesty.
If you want to call the attacks on Warnock terrible, dishonest, and disgusting, I agree; if you want to call them based on bigotry, I’d also agree; if you want to call the attacks religiously bigoted, I’m not so sure.
I’d add that I’m in general agreement with the main point of the letter. I just see it more as a race issue than a religion issue. I can understand how black ministers might not see any distinction.