Another day, another GOP candidate discriminating against a minority. This time it happened to be Carly Fiorina, who embraced the age-old tradition of suggesting that non-religious people aren’t good human beings. Here’s what Fiorina said to an audience in Iowa:

I think people of genuine faith, whatever their faith is — I’m a Christian — but people of genuine faith, I believe, make better leaders. And I don’t say that with disrespect to anyone, but I’ll tell you specifically what I think faith gives a leader. I believe faith gives us empathy. A person of faith knows that no one of us is any better than any other one of us. Each of us are created by God. And that empathy permits us to see in someone’s circumstance possibilities. Faith gives us humility. Humility is really important in a leader, because it is humility that causes a leader to say, “Sometimes I must be restrained. Sometimes this is not something I should do. Sometimes this is something I don’t know. Sometimes I need to seek wisdom and counsel of others,” perhaps, for example, the citizens of this great nation…And finally, I think faith gives us optimism. And you cannot lead effectively — which, in the end, leadership is about unlocking potential in others — you cannot lead unless you know that people will rise to the occasion. That there is a brighter future in front of us if we do the right things.

Ok, so to recap. Those without faith don’t have 1) empathy, 2) humility, and/or 3) optimism. But as all good bigots seem to do, Fiorina moderates her intolerance by saying, “I don’t say that with disrespect to anyone.” It reminds me of how Trump qualified his statement on Mexicans being rapists and criminals by saying, “some, I assume, are good people.”

Statements like Fiorina’s are part of a larger problem in this country. Americans do not trust or accept the non-religious; especially in positions of power. (Disregard for now the no religious test clause in our Constitution.) A Pew poll last year found that atheism remains the most untrusted attribute in American politicians. As you can see from the chart below, you’d be more popular if you were a 70-year-old adulterer who had never held office before. How…tolerant of us?

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