Republican bigotry and other morning links

In light of my post earlier this week about religion, here’s an example of a pastor bearing false witness against Obama—and, of course, breaking the law by using his church for an open political endorsement.
•Someone smears an Obama campaign HQ with swastikas. An apparent white supremacist expresses his views at a Romney event.Conservative pundit Ann Althouse’s response: How dare liberals bring up such a disgusting thing(“They say the opportunity to go racial and they took it!”)! A star of a Sen. Scott Brown re-election ad has a lot of racial and gay issues (in another sleazy moment, Brown dismisses asbestos victims thanking his opponent for her help as paid actors).
It’s not that all Repub voters are racists, white supremacists or sexist toads. But from the point of view of the party, voters who are are perfectly welcome in the big tent: For the past 20 years, Republicans have been treating white supremacists, extreme theocrats and others as just one more special interest group whose votes should be courted. So it’s no surprise that when those groups speak out, they speak out pro-Republican.
And the more they speak out without anyone denouncing them, the more other people assume it’s kosher in the party to be a sexist, racist homophobe. And the more sexist, racist homophobes are drawn to Republicans, the more incentive the party has to cater to them. And so the Overton window (the range of what’s considered “acceptable” in public discussion) shifts further to the ugly. In that light, I guess I should be glad that some Republicans do object to saying stuff like this out loud. Even if it’s more about losing votes than principles, defending them only legitimizes the stance. Or simply denying that there’s any bigotry or anti-woman politics in the current Republican party.
•Speaking of which, GOP candidate Richard Mourdock stands by his claim that if a woman gets pregnant from rape, God wants that baby born. At Salon, Irin Carmon suggests another reason we’re hearing so much creepy talk like this: The Tea Party has brought in a surge of candidates fresh from the base and they haven’t learned to cloak their views for the mainstream audience.