Dawkins, in a recent rant on Twitter, admitted that he had not ever read the Quran, but was sufficiently expert in the topic to denounce Islam as the main culprit of all the world's evil: "Haven't read Koran so couldn't quote chapter and verse like I can for Bible. But [I] often say Islam [is the] greatest force for evil today."

Dawkins spins wild conspiracy theories claiming that ordinary terms like "communities" and "multiculturalism" are actually ominous code words for "Muslims" and "Islam," respectively. The English Defence League, a soccer hooligan street gang that has a history of threatening Muslims with violence and assaulting police officers, has made identical claims, as have leaders of Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE), a ragtag coterie of neo-Nazis whose hate franchise spans two continents:  Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), its American counterpart, is led by bloggers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.  In July of 2011, Dawkins re-published a lengthy diatribe by former SIOE leader Stephen Gash on his website. Gash, too, has an aversion for scholarly decorum. He once unleashed a public temper tantrum during a debate on Islam at the esteemed Cambridge University Union Society, shouting and storming out of the auditorium when the invited speaker, a Muslim, rebutted his ideas before the audience.

Dawkins is also on record praising the far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders, a man who says that he "hates Islam" and that Muslims who desire to remain in the Netherlands should "rip out half of the Koran" (Later, he blabbed that the Muslim holy book should be banned entirely). The peroxide-blonde leader of the Party of Freedom, who faced trial in 2009 for hate speech, produced an amateurish flick called "Fitna" the year before. The 17-minute film was chockablock with racist images such as Muhammad's head attached to a ticking time bomb and juxtapositions of Muslims and Nazis.  For Dawkins, it was pure bliss. "On the strength of `Fitna' alone, I salute you as a man of courage who has the balls to stand up to a monstrous enemy," he wrote.

Lean's article for me, underscores the problem of a false narrative that continues to pervade our national discourse: The notion that being non-religious or secular is inherently progressive.  This narrative continues in large part because the religious and political Right has been so heavily invested in it.

The narrative has been so powerful and pervasive that it can be hard to remember that the Left is not now, nor has it ever been entirely non-religious and the Right has certainly never been entirely religious. Never. There has always been a Religious Left, although like any other sector it has had its ups and downs. And there have always been non-religious conservatives.  Always.

But this narrative continues to come up in surprising ways. A few years ago this came up on a  on a panel discussion at Netroots Nation to which I had been invited to participate.)  The panel provoked a fair amount of discussion before and after the event.)   I said "that being non-religious, or secular, is not in itself progressive any more than being religious is necessarily progressive. There are a great many non-religious conservatives -- and anyone who has ever encountered the followers of Ayn Rand knows exactly what I am talking about.  What's more, the political descendents of the Greek philosopher Plato, many of whom are non-religious, view religion as "the noble lie" to be used as a tool of social control by economic and political elites.  Some leaders of today's neoconservative movement are old school Platonists in exactly this way, and this is an important ingredient in their alliance with the Religious Right."

This narrative of the Right has proved to be durable, but it is one we need to continue to engage and ultimately replace.  We have a better story to tell.