DFL Chair Melendez support and defense of anti-catholic political ad only digs him a deeper hole and doesn't pass straight face test.

The political offensive ad used against Republican senatorial candidate Dan Hall by the state DFL party and its subsequent endorsement by DFL party chair Brian Melendez only deepens the controversy and outrage over a blatantly, bigoted political attack ad on Catholics specifically and Christians in general.

In the DFL ad attacking Hall, they show a picture of a man in a clerical collar wearing a button saying, "Ignore the Poor". Melendez supports the ad and says the depicted collar is worn "by just about every major christian denomination." I'd like to know where he's seen the depicted collar worn outside the Catholic Church. It shows his ignorance of Christian practices in Minnesota.

The other pictures used, an altar and stain glass window, are also very strong Catholic imagery. As for Hall, who's a nondenominational pastor, those scenes are not found in nondenominational churches.

In the ad, the DFL accuses Hall of ignoring the poor, because he didn't oppose Governor Pawlenty's reductions in health care expenditure increases. Such an assertion is ridiculous.

To suggest that one doesn't care about the poor, because one thinks the government should live within its means and doesn't have a responsibility to everybody with health care is a sham and a distortion of Christian beliefs. (The demand that government must provide health care for everyone is called socialism. And socialism is in fact inconsistent with Christian principles.) And to say Hall doesn't care about the poor and vulnerable is outrageous. He's been a chaplain for years helping those in great need; I suspect far more than the perpetrators of the vicious attack ad.