Sir: Joan Smith's invitation to give thanks and praise for John McCain (Comment, 16 April) as the only candidate who doesn't do God in the US elections would inspire all secularists, if only it were true.
McCain has been assiduously courting the Christian right in America over the course of the past year, attending Christian Right forums, speaking at conservative evangelical colleges founded by televangelists Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, and attending meetings with the leading pro-Israel Christian organisation, Christians United for Israel.
He has the endorsement of several leading figures on the Christian Right and has embraced two of the more extreme right-wing Christian leaders, John Hagee and Rod Parsley, who support his position on Israel and a more militant policy against Iran and radical Islam. The reason McCain did not attend the Christian forum in Pennsylvania was not because of "not doing God" but because it was organised by liberal rather than conservative evangelicals.
While Clinton and Obama are "banging on about their imaginary friends", McCain's real friends are preparing to maintain conservative evangelical influence in a future McCain administration.
Dr Lee Marsden
Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of East Anglia, Norwich
Beam me up, Scotty, for f*c* sake.