Well, honestly, you are all right. I do take it too seriously, but that topic especially, because it affects me personally. I wish I could just escape it completely, really, but I have to deal with this debate constantly in real life. I want it to end, but I don't want it to end just for the sake of ending, whereas conservative religion wins. I want my point to be put across, and if it still doesn't convince the person I'm debating, then so be it. At least I've made all of my points and maybe lurkers will know something they didn't know before.
Foreigners may never fully understand this, but religion is a major issue of contention in America. Not like Northern Ireland, where it has led to violence, but, especially since they have "one of their own" in the Presidency, they want to assert their muscle, which has absolutely no regard for anyone that doesn't think like them. I certainly have respected their right to believe as they do, as long as it doesn't infringe on my right to disagree, but they don't extend the same courtesy. They have the advantage with such "nice" names as "Christian Coalition" and "Focus on the Family," but, make no mistake about it: they have a very huge political agenda that is not very representative of all of Christianity nor all families; just their narrow view. I need to expose them for what they are.
Melon
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"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time
[This message has been edited by melon (edited 03-01-2002).]