Couldn't have said it better

"Progressives routinely and rightly stand up for and preach respect for the beliefs of religious minorities, but if they do it while sneering and scoffing at the religious beliefs of the majority they aren't fooling anyone.  Making fun of a belief in a white-bearded magician in the sky is implicitly making fun of a belief in Allah, Krishna, and the Great Spirit and believers of all kinds know it.  Dismissing mainstream religious beliefs as mere superstition and bigotry while standing up for the people who believe that rocks have magical healing powers and getting totally whacked out on mushrooms is the path to enlightenment expresses a cognitive dissonance that will strike most intelligent observers as indistinguishable from willfull stupidity or hypocrisy."

- Lance Mannion

Right on!  He has a lot more points to make, all worth your time. But I am still not comfortable with the sanctuary being used for a political debate or the fact that people had to pay a big amount to get into the debate. I don't believe a candidate's religious views have anything to do with how he is likely to govern (isn't almost everything manufactured these days,why would anyone's religious views be any different) and the less relgion has an impact on polity, the more relieved I am. No, I am not going on a 'religion is evil' tangent, but a secular place is a much safer, nicer place not just for unbelievers, but also to believers who just don't believe the same thing. After all someone who denied Christ was as likely to get burnt on the stake as someone who did not get in line with the orthodoxy.