Jim Antle addresses an important point regarding responses to Jack Conway’s bizarre “Aqua Buddha” ad:

Zengerle’s TNR colleague Jonathan Chait opined that “Rand Paul harbors a private contempt for Christianity” based on really little more than college-era letters Paul wrote about Ayn Rand. But there are lots of people who have imbibed the objectivist thinker’s individualism and libertarianism without embracing her anti-Christianity, probably in greater numbers than radical liberation theologians who square Marxism with Chrisitianity.

It’s certainly true that there are are hard-core Ayn Rand devotees who are also vehemently anti-Christian, but Jim is right that agreeing with Rand on certain political questions need not imply an endorsement of her other views. Indeed, one thing that most libertarians have in common is their practical indifference to religion when it comes to the activities of the government. They have no interest in promoting it, and would find state promotion of religion obnoxious, but they aren’t particularly antagonistic towards religious belief, either. Even if it were true that Rand Paul harbors contempt for Christianity, for which there appears to be zero evidence, that might alienate some voters, but it would have no effect on what he believes the government should be doing. Of course, it isn’t true, which makes the attack that much more laughable and desperate.

What is even more odd is that the substance of Rand Paul’s opposition to funding for faith-based initiatives puts him on the side of many Christian conservatives who view any government funding of charitable and religious institutions as a potential threat to the religious liberty of those institutions. For these Christians, faith-based initiatives do not represent constructive cooperation between government and religious institutions, but are simply another form of intrusion and potential control. By emphasizing Paul’s opposition to this funding, the ad is almost certainly going to make him more popular among the conservative Christians who are supposed to be scandalized by it. Besides being offensive and untrue, Conway’s ad has the added flaw that there is no significant constituency that is going to respond to the ad’s message.