"Christian" defiance monitor

MILWAUKEE -- Overt displays of religiosity are not just for Southern voters anymore.

Barack Obama’s campaign, which has fought off persistent rumors that the candidate is Muslim, is distributing handbills to Wisconsin voters affirming his so very un-Muslim religious beliefs, modeled on mailers the campaign debuted in South Carolina last month.

The literature handed out here has the Huckabeeesque headline “COMMITTED CHRISTIAN” prominently on one side and a yet more Huckabeeseque photo of Barack Obama with a large cross over his shoulder -- although on this point Obama manages even less subtlety than Huckabee, since Obama’s cross appears on the wall behind a church pulpit and not floating through something resembling a furniture showroom.

The Wisconsin-specific handbill introduces the Obama family as “active members of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago” and gives his conversion a particularly evangelical flavor, describing the “day Obama felt a beckoning of the spirit and accepted Jesus Christ into his life.”