Yes, I know that Salon’s gotta Salon, but this is a remarkable example of progressive foaming-at-the-mouth Know-Nothingism. Marco Rubio released an ad in Iowa discussing his Christian faith in the context of politics, the kind of soft, personal spot that aims to attract voters through shared values. As usual with these efforts, the idea is to emphasize commonalities, so Rubio’s explanation of Christian faith is at the most basic level, intended to appeal to all denominations:

Compare the mild, gentle presentation of Christianity’s most basic concepts to the strident, hysterical THEOCRACY’S A-COMING FER US screed by Jeffrey Tayler. It includes the usual anti-Catholic tropes and offers a few others, such as Tayler’s rage over Antonin Scalia’s giving thanks to God for our country and liberty, which Tayler describes as stealing the credit from our ancestors. It includes a juvenile and derisive opening argument about the “frocked and beanied” Pope Francis. (Gee, I thought progressives liked Francis?) This is Tayler’s view of Christianity:

One of the most annoying things about religious folks is that they just cannot keep their “good news” to themselves. Not two weeks into the new year, the frocked and beanied capo dei capi of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, chose to impose upon humanity a book of his own authorship, “The Name of God Is Mercy.” The title alone should have given reviewers cause to dispatch the tome, unopened, straight into the waste bin. “Mercy?” From a purportedly omnipotent Lord who chose to sire a kid whom He subjected to ghastly tortures culminating in execution? Who battered and abused poor Job on a whim? Who ordered a patriarch to knife his own long-awaited son? The name of God, were God to exist, would be anything but mercy.

Golly, we Christians have never heard those arguments before! Ironically, Tayler — who is also “a contributing editor at The Atlantic,” according to his bio — then accuses Rubio of having “faith-derangement syndrome”:

Moreover, faith-derangement syndrome afflicts the undeniably young and intelligent, and most notably, among the Republican contenders for the White House, Senator Marco Rubio. Rubio once converted to Mormonism but currently two-times with both the Catholic Church and the extremist, anti-gay, pro-exorcist Christ Fellowship. He has just put out a television campaign ad entitled “Marco Rubio on His Christian Faith.”

Derangement, indeed. One of the most annoying aspects of rabid atheists is that they just cannot keep their irrational hatred to themselves.

And one of the most annoying aspects of Salon is that they keep at it. Tayler fumes at the “crushing banality” of Rubio’s faith, but the crushing banality of so many regurgitated anti-Catholic and anti-Christian tropes pulses throughout this essay. On top of that, it’s practically a recapitulation of every complaint Tayler already offered in April 2015 for Salon, too, except for the bizarre plea to fringe presidential candidate Mark Everson to become the atheists’ savior in the 2016 cycle.

So yes, Salon’s gotta Salon. Salon’s also gotta rerun, too. Meanwhile, the rest of the rational world will see Rubio’s ad and wonder how anyone could work themselves into a shrieking lather over it, but such is the world of Salon, it seems.