In the minds of many at the Washington Post, if you believe in and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, then you shouldn’t be qualified to run for public office.

According to Casey Chalk at The Federalist, a man named Robert R. Reilly has been nominated for the position of director at Voice of America. For all intents and purposes, he’s the right man for the job. As Chalk notes, Reilly was director from 2001 to 2002 and produced a weekly talk show there as well.

However, the WaPo editorial board, media columnist Margeret Sullivan, and former VOA director Amanda Bennett have released a series of columns denouncing Reilly, calling him “dangerous” and “extreme” simply on the basis of his Christian beliefs. The specific reason is due to Reilly’s writings on the Catholic teachings about homosexuality:

In a Dec. 11 op-ed for the Washington Post, Bennett labeled Reilly’s beliefs on homosexuality “extreme.” She cited Reilly’s 2014 book, “Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything,” as evidence. Bennett says the book describes “homosexual acts as ‘habitual moral failure’ and lament[s] the ‘legitimization of homosexual behavior.’” The Washington Post editorial board similarly maligned Reilly for his “tirade against the LGBTQ community.”

Reilly, a Catholic himself, subscribes to the Catholic teachings on homosexuality as not only a sin but an act that goes against nature for separating the act from the gift of life.

This is a standard belief across the board for those of the Catholic faith. It should be noted that the Catholic faith does not require the faithful to despise those who are gay, as Jesus commands us to love everyone while rejecting sin, but that nuance is purposefully lost on those with a political agenda.

Still, WaPo has effectively played its hand and has made it clear that it believes Christians shouldn’t be able to hold public office due to their beliefs about homosexuality. What’s more, WaPo has proved it has a shallow understanding of the world around it and will cast out details and nuance in order to arrive at ridiculous conclusions about how an individual actually feels about a group.

As Chalk notes, it’s apparent that WaPo and Bennet hardly did any real research into Reilly. They likely just read the titles of his books, read an Amazon review, and passed judgment:

What is more plausible is that Bennett, Sullivan, and the Washington Post don’t really know much of anything about what Reilly thinks about homosexuality or Islam because they haven’t bothered to read more than an Amazon page or a book jacket cover.

This points to two broader problems, one of which is shameful, the other deeply concerning. The first is that the left is largely ignorant of intellectual conservatism.

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Not only does the left have difficulty understanding conservatives and right-leaning Christians, but it regularly demonizes and targets them. Before Reilly was Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Mike Pence, and many others.

It begs the question of who the real bigots in the room are. Clearly, WaPo believes that holding Christian beliefs automatically disqualifies you from holding office.

Oddly, they didn’t give this kind of rejection to “devout Catholic” Joe Biden.