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Originally Posted by alansmithee
You call it religious extremism, but what you described is no such thing. It seems as if your personal dislike for those with religious beliefs coulors your thinking. The Constitution does not ban people from having religious beliefs, nor does it ban people from acting on their beliefs. Also, what if someone had the same exact beliefs and moral set, but didn't actually practice religion, or believe in any particular religion? Would they also be a religious extremist? And maybe judges don't see a law as non-constitutional because it isnt, not because of some vast religious conspiracy. There seems to be a tactic of the left now to label any position they don't agree with that has to do with morality as a religious issue, and then try to ban people holding that belief from making their opinion known, regardless of if they are actually religious. That is how being anti-abortion can make you a religious extremist trying to subvert the Constitution, because rather than deal with the issue head on liberals desire to have the other position disqualified from being debated.
Why is it any different? What makes religion so heinous that it should be excluded? What is religion but a belief system? There is no functional difference, but by labelling positions that they oppose as being religious, the left is able to attempt to deny a large portion of the population a voice. This has nothing to do with the first amendment, it has to do with politics.
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Look, bottom line, and all my predjudices against religious wheel-spinning any opression, and all yours against secular humanism and constitutional law aside (seriously: aside), the problem is not that Christian Fundamentalists will strive for Power by any means necessary nor that those who oppose them will do so by any means necessary. The problem is that we are all people, fundamentally the same kind of thing, perhaps even the very same thing. We need to figure out how to talk to each other.
Does it make me feel like I am accomplishing something by calling you "benighted idiot" or "papist pig-boy" or some other reprehensible epithet? Surely it does, but it is a pleasure I would willingly forego if I could figure out a way that we could all come out of our ideological bastions and start trying to figure out what really is good for ourselves, not what a Texas Oilman or Sexless Nebraska Bluenose says is good for us.
So let's drop it. I know you will try to get your ideals reflected in the law, as will I. I know that you will obstruct my efforts, as I will yours. This is not war - it is political inevitiablity. But we must, unless we care to continue this circular silliness, find common ground where we can. Only then does it become less important that I have a swimming date in a rather warmish and sanguinary pool, and you are worshipping the being that wants to put me there.
Think of it this way: however you want to put it, it was and remains literally true that "The Kingdom of God is at Hand". What could you possibly do to improve on that? Nothing but love your enemy.