I agree with the person that said that being pandered to by the republican candidates a little is a nice change. I have worked with a lot of openly religious people in the local and US government that cross the line in their judgement of atheists. Of course most religious people are not too judgemental and I have had many good work and social relationships with openly very religious people, but I constantly would hear closed-minded, sometimes crazy comments from many others. This is when I sometimes come out of the "atheist closet" to let them know that atheists don't eat babies and such. Unless you work at a religious institution, talking extreme religion at work should be a no no, but under this environment, that has somehow been forgotten. I think that the tolerance of intolerance of non-religious people can come from above and if a US President (or a preacher) says that atheists are not immoral maybe the intolerant god-fearing religious people would leave us alone. And the US founding fathers did not want the Bible to run our daily laws. They knew that the bible as a book could be scewed to fit some individuals' outrages ideas because they knew that humans are far from perfect. Please read history books or watch some decent documentaries on the first settlers, the Puritans and founding fathers such as Ben Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, etc. Just look at other very religious countries history and see how great they are doing and how well they treat their citizens.

It wasn't that long ago that Mike Huckabee was complaining about what he believed to be unfair treatment of his religion. Sorry Mike, but you can't have it both ways: i.e. run on religion/play the religious card and have it escape scrutiny. This is especially true given the statements he's made in the past. Anything you want the run on--including religion--becomes fair game for scrutiny.

The public has a notoriously short memory, but hopefully there is some recollection of the Terry Schiavo case. I would argue that the outcome and in particular public opinion was a backlash against the policies of the religious right.

The religious right wants to regulate end of life decisions, what consenting adults can and can't do, what you can and can't watch on TV.

Non-believers are tired of the less government hypocrisy: tired of politicians who clamor for economic degregulation and then turn around and attempt to infringe on the right of privacy, the behavior of consenting adults, and so forth.

Any religious candidate who wants non-believers to even consider them, should make some kind of concession that they will not infringe on privacy or what consenting adults do. I don't think that that will happen.