I found Dawkins far more sympathetic after reading his book: The god delusion. It was quite funny, I though. And I though he made some very good points...
For example: We have all these religiouns more or less explicitly claiming to be the Truth, which means they think the other ones are Wrong, and this is more or less okay. Making a similar statement, the Athiest is accused of smug superiority and of being condescending and patronizing. Unlike say Catholics, we do not condemn people to an Eternity in Hell for disagreement. Now, the Catholic position seems the rather smugger one to me, assuming as it does an eternity of suffering for those of other or no faith.
(Possibly the religious know something (ie. us Athiests are Right) and are just unhappy to admit it, and hate to have it pointed out? Why else would this be such a sore spot for them?)
No, atheism should never be a prereq for a particular political direction. But I see no reason why Faith and Religion should be these great Untouchable subjects about which we are not allowed to make disagreeing statements but must proceed with uttermost care and delicacy and tolerance or feelings gets hurt.