There is no doubt that the headline would be telling a different story if the office at issue were the presidency of the United States. 

But because it’s a congressional seat from Minnesota, the news is thus: The first Muslim appears headed for Congress.  

Those of us who view diversity as a positive development -- as opposed to a sign of social decay -- consider this encouraging news. But it has not come about easily. The emergence of Keith Ellison, the Democratic Farmer Labor Party nominee for Congress from Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District, has reminded us that being anything but Protestant Christian still takes a toll in political contests.

Ellison was a member of the Nation of Islam, the black Americanized branch of Islam that wavers between fame and infamy, thanks mainly to its oft-controversial leader, Min. Louis Farrakhan.

Ellison’s religious choice has aroused some veiled and not-so-veiled bigotry from his Republican opponent, a management expert named Alan Fine. It has become his habit to accuse Ellison of associating with terrorists -- a charge for which Fine has offered no proof.  Fine also claims Ellison is under Farrakhan’s spell.

Those are cheap shots, so easy to pass off now when ignorance and fear have teamed up to produce their usual foolishness -- and with serious consequences, like unconstitutional detentions and outrageous claims that can cost a person not only his liberty but his life.

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It’s not unlike what Alfred E. Smith faced in his bid for the presidency in 1928. Forget his positions on the issues; it was the New Yorker’s Catholicism that set tongues wagging and tempers flaring those nearly 80 years ago.

In one of the campaign’s worst instances of anti-Catholic demagoguery, James “Cotton Tom” Heflin took to the floor of the U.S. House with this harangue: “Here they tell you in their book that they will force the propaganda of Protestants to cease; they will lay the heavy hand of a Catholic state upon you and crush the life out of Protestantism in America.”

Although a Democrat, Cotton Tom was so paranoid about a Vatican takeover via a Smith presidency that he supported the Republican that year -- Herbert Hoover, a Quaker.

More than three decades later, John F. Kennedy found that anti-Catholicism was still at large. As Ted Sorenson, Kennedy’s speechwriter, recalled, “Many Americans were fearful that a Catholic in the White House would be under the direction of the Vatican, and the Pope, and that the constitutional separation of church and state would be compromised.” 

Time proved the absurdity of that notion and, today, nearly one-third of House members -- 58 Republicans and 72 Democrats -- profess to be Catholic. In 2004, Catholic John Kerry came close to winning the White House.

Ellison brings us, once again, to the frontier’s edge, where it is rough going and iffy. Who knows what awaits in that new yonder?

Here’s another good sign: Fine’s own brother is distancing himself from the GOP nominee, who has also found it necessary to pedal backwards.  And though there are bound to be yea-sayers aplenty, Fine’s accusations have drawn considerable outrage from Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Politicos in Minneapolis say Ellison is the man to beat.

We extend our best wishes for not only a comfortable victory but, more than that, for a comfortable two years that will not have the new congressman counting to 10 or pacing the halls of Congress day in and day out in order to keep his cool as assorted distinguished ladies and gentlemen cast aspersions on a religion they don’t understand.