Much has been made of the Democratic Party’s attempts to reach out to religiously minded voters or, as many have said, to simply “get religion.” Apparently that hasn’t stopped the DNC from using religion as a wedge, however.

After San Antonio pastor John Hagee (who’s so supportive of Israel that he’d make a really good Jew, except that he’s Christian) endorsed McCain, the DNC put out a statement criticizing Hagee for his anti-Catholic comments.

From the DNC’s Stacie Paxton, via email:

The Catholic vote has been the only bright spot for John McCain in the Republican primaries among faith voters – so this could pose a serious dilemma and problem for the McCain campaign. In Wisconsin, McCain won the Catholic vote with 67 percent, in Missouri with 46 percent, and in Virginia by 67 percent but lost the Protestant and “other Christian” vote to Huckabee in each contest. McCain would have a difficult time distancing himself from Hagee even if he tried.

So religion is a unifier, supposedly, unless it goes to the other party.

But probably even more bizarre was the DNC’s use of Deal Hudson, the former publisher of Crisis magazine and former director of Catholic outreach for the Bush/Cheney 04 campaign. (He’s also the guy, you may remember, who got sacked after it was revealed he had inappropriate dalliances with an undergrad while he was a college prof.) The DNC quoted Hudson (and the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue) going after Hagee for his anti-Catholic comments:

“I will say to John McCain the same thing I said to Mike Huckabee: There is anti-Catholicism in our culture, some of which is found among Evangelical Christians; you should be aware of this and not do anything that promotes those attitudes or those who espouse them. “

Donohue, it should be mentioned, has created numerous headaches for the DNC over their on-again, off-again attempts at religious outreach, especially when it came to John Kerry’s support of abortion rights.

So, I guess it goes something like this: We’re Democrats, and we like religion. Unless it’s a religion that goes for the other guy. And we don’t like it when Deal Hudson or Bill Donohue shill for the GOP or attack the DNC, but when they say the opposition is cozying up to bigots, we’ll take ’em.

Aint politics grand?