I cannot stand to see this “Democrats kicked God out of their platform and then booed Him at their convention” nonsense bandied about for even five more minutes. So can we lay it to rest right here?

Here is a fact: the 2008 Democratic platform contained a reference to God, as in “We need a government that…gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.” The 2012 Democratic platform does not contain that line.

Here’s another fact: the 2012 Democratic platform dropped another sentence from the 2008 version. That sentence? “We will ensure that public funds are not used to proselytize or discriminate.” It refers to the Bush-era policy, which President Obama has continued, of allowing faith-based organizations to discriminate when hiring employees using federal funds. Most religious conservatives fiercely support that policy (although they do so now silently) on the grounds that it protects the freedom of religious institutions.

Fact: this second and actually substantive omission has not been mentioned by any of the conservatives gleefully accusing Democrats of banishing God. Nor was it reported by David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network, who has been busy promoting his “exclusive” about the disappearance of the phrase “God-given.”

A few more inconvenient facts for Mitt Romney, who said the absence of “God-given” proved Democrats are “veering further and further away into an extreme wing that Americans don’t recognize” and Paul Ryan, who told Fox News that Democrats have “the onus and burden on them to explain why they did all this, these purges of God”: