You know, that might be the easy answer, but you ask a gay man how "ridiculous" the amount of clout and support that Falwell's and Robertson's and their ilk's views have. Ask a woman who strongly believes in her right to choose how ridiculous it is. I mean it's easy to write them off as nutbags that they are, but the reality is that they are NOT just crazy people. They are political figures in their own right with a huge following, a powerful lobby. These are people who got your ineffective and stupid Congress to get on planes in the middle of the night so they could go vote to save a vegetative corpse of Schiavo. Now you tell me that it's all just ridiculous. It may be in principle, but they are getting some things done, so you don't have the luxury of just saying who cares, they're crazies.
I will always speak out about the nutbags within Christianity, be it left wing, right wing, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, whatever. I feel it is partly my responsibility because they reflect on me as a Christian, and because any change and any revolution comes from within. If we are not willing to put up a fight, then who is?
Frankly, I think it's dangerous to say that these fundamentalists are simply crazy or simply ridiculous. It does nothing to solve the problem of their influence in our secular society. And yes, many of us have interests like AIDS in Africa or, personally for me, cancer research, but that doesn't mean that you turn a blind eye on what's going on in your own backyard.