With Texas Governor Rick Perry’s widely expected entrance into the GOP presidential race today, so-called progressives are freaking out over his faith. Specifically, the objections revolve around his prayer rally a week ago at Houston’s Reliant Stadium.

Exhibit A: Carl Medearis writes in the Huffington Post:

But here’s my suggestion for the next politician that feels the need to call the nation to prayer, and wants to do so in a way that honors Jesus. Why not make the event open to people of all faiths and political persuasions? And rather than focusing on a narrow set of political concerns, why not make the focus of prayer something that Jesus actually talked about, like removing the planks from our eyes before we judge others… and loving our neighbor as ourselves?

This is completely disingenuous on the part of Medearis. The rally was open to all. Indeed, the title of the article is “Why I Didn’t Attend Rick Perry’s Prayer Rally.” This clearly suggests that Medearis could have attended the event if he so wanted. But since he didn’t attend how can he say the rally was focused “on a narrow set of political concerns” if he wasn’t present to hear the message?

Exhibit B: In a piece titled, “Rick Perry and the scandal of prayer,” Paula Kirby of the Washington Post begins her piece by writing, “Rick Perry embodies the tragedy and the scandal of the modern United States.” It gets better:

And as I see it, no person who dares to think of himself as educated or civilized – let alone as worthy to be the potential leader of the developed world – has any business surrendering himself to a fictional fairy godfather.

So by that reasoning I gather that Kirby also believes that Abraham Lincoln invoked “a fictional fairy godfather” a dozen times in his Second Inaugural Address?

But Kirby didn’t go over the top until she wrote this paragraph:

This is what Rick Perry is proposing as the solution to America’s problems: that we turn our backs on the very reasoning processes which, in reality, offer our only hope and which are the very source of human dignity; that we reject them, spurn them, cast them aside as though they were shameful and unclean. It is the equivalent of proposing that we put out an inferno by discarding our fire extinguishers; that we save the occupants of a stricken ship by sinking the lifeboats; and that before ejecting from a stalled aircraft, we should first carefully ensure that we cut the cords on our parachutes.

Now I don’t know if I’ll end up supporting Perry for the nomination. But these hysterical reactions to him and his faith certainly help his cause with me and I suspect that I am not alone in my thinking. When so-called progressives accuse Perry of not being inclusive, surrendering to a fictional fairy godfather, and abandoning reason itself it suggests they are afraid of him. Very, very afraid. They are filled with fear of the prospect that Perry could beat President Obama.