God-addled politicos keep speaking in (idiot) tongues

An addition to yesterday's Texan Democrats (a little) less religious than Republicans: Let's take things up from one state to the national level. In Republicans v secular America, Dan Kennedy of Guardian News and Media reports on the latest machinations by a party salivating over the prospect of religion-based control over the US populace. Yes, that's all nothing you don't already know, but it's a jolting drink of gasoline to see so many voices of inanity gathered into one article:

• Tim Pawlenty: "God is in charge ... In the Declaration of Independence it says we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. It doesn't say we're endowed by Washington, DC, or endowed by the bureaucrats or endowed by state government. It's by our creator that we are given these rights."
• Mitt Romney: Deflects suspicion toward his wacky Mormon sect by embracing "any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty" – but apparently, only such believers.
• Sarah Palin: Prays to invisible spirits for oil pipelines. (I presume the difficult words were written on her palm.)
• Mike Huckabee: "I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ."

But wait! There's more! Virginia State Delegate and Republican Bob Marshall just added, in a rant against Planned Parenthood:

"The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children. In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There's a special punishment Christians would suggest."

That's right: We're one-tenth into the 21st Century, and this guy claims that handicapped children are a punishment from the Old Testament Yahweh.

Fiscal conservatism? Proper role of government? Those and a thousand other matters are reasonable discussions on real-world topics to be had between "the left" and "the right" in the US, with meaningful ideas potentially coming from both sides. But as long as the Republican party is chock full of nuts like the above, who want to move their adherence to an ancient Middle Eastern cult from an appropriately private matter to a public requirement, any American wanting to keep religion and government separate (as the nation's founders clearly intended) needs to support the lesser of the two evils, the Democrats.

Or get to work cleaning house in the Republican party, pronto. Is it so hard to throw out morons who want to base government on supernatural voodoo? 

UPDATE: The same breed of idiots claims that any gathering of atheists is, by definition, a hate group.