Making the merely evil look mainstream

The more emboldened the really unsubtle nutjobs are to spew their hatred and fear across the city halls and statehouses throughout the land the more the banally evil types can get away with their matter-of-fact racism.

Via Orcinus, an example of one of the wackier members of the right wing:

A college production tells the story of Matthew Sheppard, a student beaten to death because he was gay.

And soon, it could be banned in Alabama.

Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. Under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters.

Big deal, you say, it's just some southern nut case. Which may be true, but it's also true that this guy was a delegate to the Republican convention. Which, admittedly, doesn't say much for his sanity, but it does mean that this guy's positions are theoretically within the GOP's tent.

It may seem like I am making too big a deal of this, but I think it's relevant in light of the treatment of this weekend's statement by Pat Robertson:

Robertson, who launched a brief presidential bid in 1988, said that if he were president he would not appoint Muslims to serve in his Cabinet and that he was not in favor of Muslims serving as judges.

"They have said in the Koran there's a war against all the infidels," he said. "Do you want somebody like that sitting as a judge? I wouldn't."

What's astonishing about this statement is not that he made it, but that coverage of the comment was a distant second to coverage of his choice for Republican presidential candidate for 2008.