...supposedly "anti-Catholic bigots" you can bet that John Edwards is going to keep talking about the need to help the poor.

Which one is talking about what Jesus cared about?

But in her writings she certainly warmly embraced the tactic of mocking that faith.

She mocked misogyny, if we're talking about what I think we're talking about.  Are you saying that misogyny is a necessary part of Catholicism?  If you are, then that is a bigoted statement.  

And yes, I know that misogyny has been a part of historical Catholicism, but I also know that

1. religions change (that's why they have a history)

2. American Catholics don't all toe the (Roman) party line

Mocking the application of some doctrine to law isn't only permissible, it's a necessary part of resisting theocracy.  I've even seen religious people do it.  
.

"I hired her. I don't have to agree with everything everyone on my staff ever said or believed. Get real. Move on."

I smell a future Amy Sullivan column recycling most of these talking points.

I also didn't realize that when The Onion published an article called "E-Meters Said to Measure Human Gullibility," they were engaging in very real and hurtful hate speech against Scientologists.

Let's go get Bill Donohue --  either via the IRS or the NY State AG.  (Scroll down for more info.)

The IRS can take away his tax-exempt status.  But the NYS Attorney General's office can shut him down, PERIOD -- and very quickly.

what were the context of her comments?

with the Duke lacrosse team that is more disturbing. Pretty clear now that the prosecutor is a criminal and the case a total fraud similar to Sharpton and Tawana Brawley.

But as you say, she can anything she wants, the embarrassment in all this is for Edwards who was clueless on what the bloggirls were writing and was using them to curry favor with the whitemanopshere (another thread here) to show how hip he was and instead showed that he was clueless on it, never read what the ladies wrote, just was looking for a name.

You know that if Edwards staff had gone to him about hiring the ladies and provided examples, the catholic stuff, the auto-fellatio laugher, he'd have said..."No way...are you nuts!".

It's still a puzzler what you hire a blogger to do in a political campaign if not blog in which case, who wants to read what they (the now employed by the campaign blogger) had to say? I'd could see having the campaign monitor the blogs and pop in with factual info/corrections in threads about their candidate but why hire a "commentator" for that?

Conversely, I could Obama campaign hiring Farouk Olu Aregbe as their blogger because the guy's web work is online organizing for Obama.

"Have we made the Democratic tent big enough to welcome religious activists without constantly snickering behind their backs?"

You've fallen into a trap. As some joker said, "Outside of issues relating to corruption, Democrats must never criticize each other in the same manner that Republicans criticize Democrats."

You've internalized a right-wing attack. 'We,' if by 'we' you mean the Democratic Party, are overwhelmingly religious. Our leaders are openly, often ostentatiously, religious, and the great majority of our members are religious. I'm not sure exactly who's 'snickering', and I'm damn sure that nobody's doing that 'behind anyone's back.' We're Democrats, and we're Americans: we can disagree, loudly and openly, with our friends, allies, and fellow activists.

The real question is: ""Have we made the Democratic tent big enough to welcome diverse, even opposing, beliefs, while working together for common goals?"

That's an okay question. Can a devout Catholic feel welcome in our tent? Can a hardcore athiest? A Muslim? A transsexual? Will we support all the above for political office? (Okay, that's not fair: of course we can't support an athiest! They're dirty.)  

If you took every Democrat who agreed with Marcotte and combined them into one super-anti-religious-activist (which, to be uncharacteristically fair, I don't know that Marcotte is), they still wouldn't have as much power as 'religious activists'.

So the right-wing frame notwithstanding, the question really isn't 'are people of faith welcome in the Democrat Party?' People of faith comprise the majority of the Democratic Party, while people who snicker too loudly find themselves in danger of losing their jobs.

The question is--well, one of them anyway--how can we criticise religious (and I'd also say 'ethnic') people and institutions without expressing bigotry toward people of that religion or ethnicity? This is extremely sensitive, obviously. The Catholic Church, Israel, William Jefferson ... all of these deserve harsh criticism, and in every case there's a line beyond which lies bigotry. Even factually-correct criticism can become prejudice. So I agree there's a crackable nut, here: but it's very little to do with the 'are people of faith welcome in the Democratic Party' frame that the right loves so well.

"I think William Dononhue is a dumbass, but I trust his characterization of Amanda's views nonetheless."

Jesus got crucified, and you don't hear him whining about it non-stop. There's no reason Catholics, or indeed people of any religion or none, shouldn't be able to deal with a bit of mockery.

Of course this statement:

"Whether someone really thinks that they're eating the body and blood of their messiah is far, far less a concern to me than whether they walk the walk of a social teaching that condemns inequality and champions justice."

can be construed as:

"I will tolerate christians as long as they agree with me". That's how I took it.