Senator Dole Sued Over Misleading "Godless" Commercial (VIDEO)

Via The New York Times:

The Democratic candidate for Senate in North Carolina fired back in court on Thursday after a television advertisement questioned her Christian faith and linked her to a political group called the Godless Americans.

The candidate, State Senator Kay Hagan, filed a defamation lawsuit against her Republican opponent, Senator Elizabeth Dole, and released a 30-second television response affirming her belief in God.

WATCH her new ad:

Undeterred, Sen. Dole released a second "Godless" ad, claiming that Hagan's faith isn't "the question" and again tying Hagan to the Godless Americans group.

Comments

[Pacojam]

I think Obama should sue McCain over several of his ads, and he certainly would win!

[LisaLisa1234]

Hopefully, Senator McCain will have to endure worse consequences than a lawsuit in 3 days: he will have to deal with the loss of the Presidency.

[interestedinthis]

Dole is clearly the Godless one. As is Coulter. Pure projection. Problem is, neither is even close to ethical. The hypocricy of the far right is astounding. It sure shows the core of their values - power and money. What a shameful bunch.

[firewmn]

**
Countdown- Keith O -refers to Coulter as "Coultergu­ise"... quite approriate!

[FrankLeeSpeaking]

#1 cause of human death on earth..... RELIGION

[FrankLeeSpeaking]

#1 cause of death on earth .... Humans

[BlueHeel]

#1 cause of humans on earth.... humans

[tommybones]

It's truly amazing how Atheists and Agnostics can be so viciously smeared and vilified and the only outrage is shown by claiming one has no affiliation with such horrific people. The outrage is never in defense of those who don't believe in God, but instead relies on debunking any relationship with the "godless."

I'm an atheist and I feel fairly confident that I'm a hard-working, caring & productive citizen of this country. I pay taxes (lots of them) and I volunteer. I give a ton to charity and spend a good portion of my free time fighting for the civil rights of others. Why should I and those like me be viciously smeared with impunity?

Imagine it we replaced "godless" in these adds with "christians" or "Jews" or any other religious choice? What would the reaction be in that case? Clearly, Muslims get similar treatment, but at least you get some mainstream defense!

[Myshkin57]

From the comments posted, I'm betting many people would be interested in watching the exchange between Amy Holmes and Bill Maher from last night's Real Time. I apparently am not able to post anything about the specifics, as I've tried a few times with no success.

I don't think video has been posted yet, but those interested should check it out if and when it's available. Holmes is a conservative commentator and, I believe, former GOP strategist and she agrees with Maher on the point.

[coliwabl]

Amy definately got caught with her panties down more than once. I know she is a very bright individual and understand she does what she does because of a better than average paycheck from the RNC. However, I wish she would watch the tapes of her interviews to analyze and then ask herself if she actually believes her line of manure.

[saus]

Since when did we start voting for God? I thought we voted for people. God has nothing to do with elections. If there was such a mythical magical being, heck he'd be running things, not us. I'm an atheist and I approve this posting.

[linux]

amen

[JDJase]

I'm glad this all happened. I think "Godless" is Liddy Dole's "macacca" moment...w­ell all know how that turned out for George Allen!

[concernvoter]

Religion should be banned from politics, because we all have the Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion and Petition. Kay Hagan is doing the right thing by sueing Senator Elizabeth Dole.

[wordvarc]

Elizabeth Dole and Sarah Palin epitomize the 2008 rovian RNC/GOP.

[SSN688]

Absolutely no significant difference between a fundie christian and a fundie Muslim. They both cling tightly to old obsolete ideals. They both want to destroy the non-believers. They both are intolerant of outside world views. They both want their belief systems codified into law. And they're both anti-woman.

Frankly, I wish more candidates had ties to atheists. Atheists have a much firmer grasp of reality. We don't make decisions based upon what the voices in our heads say. Instead, atheists make decisions based upon facts and reason and logic. The US would be in a much better place if we were free from the religious yoke. There would be much fewer wars in the world without the fuel and incendiary rhetoric of the world's religions.

[sciabattoni]

So... these Godless Americans want to separate church and state!?
Traitors!

[Myshkin57]

Apparently, the less God you have, the worse. So, really, Dole is in favor of pantheism.

[ob4meor]

This whole thing is such a shame. It gives nothing but a bad name to Christians. If Christians really believed what they claim to believe, they should stand up against this kind of bs. But I fear that there may be a significant of number of the electorate that eats this up. That is why Dole is doing it - people out there are buying what she is selling.

Not just Dole, but any Christians out there - They all should be ashamed!!

[LawrenceL]

I said something to this effect yesterday, and it did not appear...b­ut neither was it censored. Weird.

I guess the word "f r e a k i n'" is offensive.­..to someone with very, very, very delicate feelings. And I sure wouldn't want to hurt such a very delicate, fragile, emotionally at-risk moderator.

[LawrenceL]

Well, it looks like it was censored again.

It's interesting how the word I used, which is not obscene, got the post "scrubbed," but other posts with obscene abbreviations ("bs") are OK.

Maybe this site should try to be consistent.

[Myshkin57]

We should use Morse code to get messages through. -- . .. --.

[fnygy]

I'm a bit perplexed by your sentiment that all Christians should be ashamed for the actions of one Christian. Why stop at Christians? Dole is also a woman and an American. Can we widen the shame by association to include all women? All Americans? I'm a Christian and I'm disgusted by what Liddy Dole did - but not ashamed.

[yam1446]

Europe has Christian Democrat parties. Here in the United States, the Republican party should more accurately be called the Christian Fascist party.

[Sunny]

If Christians believed what they claim to believe .... then they'd all be DEMOCRATS!

[human23]

Hagan's spot is strong.

[labman57]

Ann Coulter must be giving advice to Dole. Unfortunately for them, Coulter shares a common philosophy with only the extreme-right fringe of the GOP. Hey, at least they have the lunatic vote wrapped up!

[wolfgangmo]

Be not complacent young padawan voter.

Help and volunteer to GOTV. Get out the vote.

[separatingwheatfromchaff]

Christians and Muslims,religion aside,is there a difference?

[Tom Joad]

the only difference is the name they've chosen for their deity.

[whitenoise007]

obviously, it's not just the right-wing extremists who have a love affair with anti-intel­lectualism­. the world's a nice place when you can reduce it to mono-syllabic, black and white platitudes. unfortunately, that's not reality.

read a book!

[Pacojam]

Agreed

[Myshkin57]

Well, they do believe that different things are right and wrong.