By Jon Winsor The New York Times Chief Editor's piece that proposed asking candidates about their religious beliefs made quite a splash. On Bloggingheads last week, two reporters did a diavlog discussing how religion should be handled in on the campaign trail. On the right is The American Conservative's Michael Dougherty, a Ron Paul supporter who is also sympathetic to Jon Huntsman. On the left is Sarah Posner, a religion beat reporter who has written exposés on Dominionism for Slate. One exchange, I think, captured the tensions over Keller's op-ed:
I think Posner is right to focus on candidates' systems of belief, and how open they are on empirical policy questions, such as evolution and climate change--as well as civil liberties questions, such as separation of church and state. If I understand Dougherty, he objects to the media deliberately hyping the religiously exotic and threatening, which for him is analogous ...
