The story reminds me of the Satanic Verses written by Salman Rushdie.

A person wrote a book. Some angry old man got offended. Likely without reading the book. Whipped up the masses who likely did not read the book or even the cliff notes version.

On the surface, I also did not understand why an author would write something so anti religion. It was quite a shock to learn that there was actually a historical Satanic Verses that Salman Rushdie borrowed the idea from.

Finally for the "defenders of the faith" like Jesse Helms, their lives are seldom model examples for their religion.