I think that taking the extremes of any religion isn't fair the the mainstream who practice it. The Christian idea that the man is the spiritual leader of the family has been consistently interpreted by many Christians to mean that the man in effect owns the rest of his family and can do whatever he wants with them.

Extremist, you say? Only a few do that? And they don't represent mainstream Christianity? True, and that's what the folks who demonize Islam do, too. It's easy to fall into these traps, and is what makes it possible for politicians to whip up their constituencies to war.

The separation of Church and State is not because Christianity likes that, and Ashcroft is doing his best to impose his Christian views on people whether they like it or not. It's a political idea, not religious idea that so far there is that division.

And yet on these boards the cry is that it's the Muslims who are trying to kill us. And, I'm sure, that in Iraq their cry has been that it's the Christians who are actually killing them. True, there are Muslim attacks upon collaborating Muslims, and innocent Muslim deaths from that. If Americans had done that, there would be an "investigation", and it would all be called "collateral damage" and acceptable.

And I think you did a good job of making my point. "I've never demonized", followed by demonizing, taking extremes and making them the norm, using an isolated event perpetrated by a sick fellow to try to epitomize the whole. I think that's how it's done. And the title of your post is so apt I'm keeping it.

Arf