Salon has posted an article featuring just a few of the people that I had dinner with last night in Wasilla, and what they know about Sarah Palin.

The Wasilla Assembly of God, the evangelical church where Sarah Palin came of age, was still charged with excitement on Sunday over Palin's sudden ascendance. Pastor Ed Kalnins warned his congregation not to talk with any journalists who might have been lurking in the pews -- and directly warned this reporter not to interview any of his flock. But Kalnins and other speakers at the service reveled in Palin's rise to global stardom.

It confirmed, they said, that God was making use of Wasilla. "She will take our message to the world!" rejoiced an Assembly of God youth ministry leader, as the church band rocked the high-vaulted wooden building with its electric gospel.

That is what scares the Rev. Howard Bess. A retired American Baptist minister who pastors a small congregation in nearby Palmer, Wasilla's twin town in Alaska's Matanuska Valley, Bess has been tangling with Palin and her fellow evangelical activists ever since she was a Wasilla City Council member in the 1990s. Recently, Bess again found himself in the spotlight with Palin, when it was reported that his 1995 book, "Pastor, I Am Gay," was among those Palin tried to have removed from the Wasilla Public Library when she was mayor.

I met the Reverend Bass last night and I must admit that since I was largely ignorant of his past community activism and run-ins with Sarah Palin, that I did not take the opportunity to engage him in more direct conversation. I certainly would have done so if I only known that I was in the company of such a warrior for human rights and justice. But having overheard some of his conversation with others in the room I can attest to his amazing intellect and youthful exuberance however.

Another valley activist, Philip Munger, says that Palin also helped push the evangelical drive to take over the Mat-Su Borough school board. "She wanted to get people who believed in creationism on the board," said Munger, a music composer and teacher. "I bumped into her once after my band played at a graduation ceremony at the Assembly of God. I said, 'Sarah, how can you believe in creationism -- your father's a science teacher.' And she said, 'We don't have to agree on everything.'

"I pushed her on the earth's creation, whether it was really less than 7,000 years old and whether dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time. And she said yes, she'd seen images somewhere of dinosaur fossils with human footprints in them."

Munger also asked Palin if she truly believed in the End of Days, the doomsday scenario when the Messiah will return. "She looked in my eyes and said, 'Yes, I think I will see Jesus come back to earth in my lifetime.'"

Now Philip Munger was somebody that I spent quite lot of time talking to yesterday evening and I found him extremely well versed in local politics and another tireless advocate for human rights and equality in Alaska. I am not at all surprised that he was willing to challenge the future VP candidate on her belief system and how that contradicted her upbringing.

I don't know about you dear reader but the very idea of having another evangelical, creationist believing, "Left Behind" book reading religious zealot in the White House scares the holy shit out of me! We may have just barely survived George Bush's two terms in office but I have no confidence that we can survive having any more of these mental midgets running our country.

And if there any Hillary Clinton supporters still considering voting for McCain and his trophy VP, then I offer you this little nugget:

In 1996, evangelical churches mounted a vigorous campaign to take over the local hospital's community board and ban abortion from the valley. When they succeeded, Bess and Dr. Susan Lemagie, a Palmer OB-GYN, fought back, filing suit on behalf of a local woman who had been forced to travel to Seattle for an abortion. The case was finally decided by the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled that the hospital must provide valley women with the abortion option.

At one point during the hospital battle, passions ran so hot that local antiabortion activists organized a boisterous picket line outside Dr. Lemagie's office, in an unassuming professional building across from Palmer's Little League field. According to Bess and another community activist, among the protesters trying to disrupt the physician's practice that day was Sarah Palin.

That is the real Sarah Palin. That is who the Republicans wants to put one heartbeat away from controlling the reigns of power in this great country. And it is up to all of us to make sure this does not happen.