John Edwards has hired a virulent anti-Catholic to run his blog!

It’s a free blogosphere, of course, and Marcotte can ridicule my religion and its teachings all she wants (though I’ll lay off her Church of the Mouse and the Disco Ball), but Democratic former North Carolina senator John Edwards, if he cares about avoiding offending Catholic voters, might care to take another look at the online writings of the woman he has just hired to be his campaign blogmaster. Her hostility to religion and in particular the Catholic Church should alarm Edwards.

It should alarm Edwards, of course, because I’d assume Edwards would want to avoid “anti-Catholic” from appearing in too many stories next to his name. And that’s not just because Catholics vote. If Edwards buys what he was saying on Meet the Press this weekend, it should thoroughly offend him too.

On Sunday, in answering a question from (Catholic) Tim Russert about gay marriage, Edwards went on about his own “faith belief.”

SEN. EDWARDS: I think it’s from my own personal culture and faith belief. And I think, if you had gone on in that same quote, that I, I have—I, I struggle myself with imposing my faiths—my faith belief. I grew up in the Southern Baptist church, I was baptized in the Southern Baptist church, my dad was a deacon. In fact, I was there just a couple weeks ago to see my father get an award. It’s, it’s just part of who I am. And the question is whether I, as president of the United States, should impose on the United States of America my views on gay marriage because I know where it comes from. I’m aware of why I believe what I believe. And I think there is consensus around this idea of no discrimination, partnership benefits, civil unions. I think that, that certainly a president who’s willing to lead could lead the country in the right direction on that.

If he’s worried about imposing you’d think he might be worried about offending.

If Edwards cares to continue to browse through the Pandagon archives, he’ll find Marcotte reacting to a story about the Catholic teaching about limbo by comparing the Catholic Church to fascist dictators.

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