Long story short: Some people have apparently started a whisper campaign that Megan Barry is, gasp, an atheist — as evidenced by the fact her husband, longtime Pith and Scene contributor Bruce Barry, belongs to the ACLU. First they spread this via email, and then phone.

As Pith's Steven Hale reported, Barry then went to talk to black religious leaders, told them she was a Christian, and a bunch of them laid hands on her and prayed for her.

First, pastors, seriously: Stop laying hands on people. It's an invasion of personal space. It's patronizing, and God knows who you're praying for. He's not an idiot. You don't have to grab them for God to know whom you mean.

Second, so what if Barry were an atheist? Her religious beliefs, or lack thereof, aren't anyone's business. That she went groveling to pastors to insist that she's a Christian once the rumors started is embarrassing. We don't have religious tests for public office in this country.

Just as embarrassing: that the pastors let her stand there and explain her faith, as if that were something she owed them. Is there not one pastor in this town who will say, "Having candidates come talk to me about their faith during a campaign feels like pandering, and I don't need to be pandered to?" My god, we've had to tolerate eight years of "Obama's a secret Muslim," and anyone with sense can see how ignorant and racist that is — but we can't see how ugly it is to accuse Megan Barry of being a secret atheist and expect her to come explain herself to Nashville's pastors? Yuck.

So now Barry has confirmed (confessed?) her Catholic faith. How many Protestant pastors in town have preached to their congregations about "idolatrous," "polytheistic" Catholics? So she's — what? Won over the small sliver of religious bigots who hate secret atheists but are fine with quiet Catholics? If that's a victory, it's a sour one indeed.

As for David Fox — whose wife Carrington is also a longtime Scene contributor — if supporters of his are behind this, what idiots must they be? They're playing with fire here, and I find it inexplicable. Using someone's association with the ACLU as a slur has long, long, long been the province of anti-Semites. (The Internet is grotesquely helpful in providing evidence; I won't sully Pith with links.)

No one says, "Oh, the ACLU is filled with atheist, communist Catholics." When bigots want to rile people up with stereotypes about ACLU supporters, out comes the vile old trope about the atheist, communist Jew.

I ask again: What idiot "supporters" of a Jewish candidate would do this?

I can only assume that the people spreading this bullshit aren't actually supporters of Fox, just opponents of Barry. Otherwise, this line of rhetoric — "Remember how much you distrust this organization you think is run by a secret cabal of Jews?" — leaves anyone backward enough to be swayed by it without a viable candidate.

I should add that the emails in question have actually not landed on my desk, so who knows? Conspiracy theorists, go nuts. But if this is indeed something that's being done on Fox's behalf without his knowledge — which seems to happen a lot — he needs to shut down that played-out last-century shit. And if it's being done with Fox's approval, it's about as far from The Nashville Way as you can get. (For the record, Fox told The Tennessean yesterday that his campaign was not involved and called the apparent effort "malicious.")

We're headed toward an ugly place if our mayor has to have the right religion before we'll vote for him or her. And I'm sorry to see these kinds of arguments finding any home in our community.



