Based on seeing the threads go by on the Latest Posts page I'd tend to agree. They are very aggressive and hostile. That is not FRiendly.
If Jim decided that their verbal thuggery had reached the point that they needed to be bounced then it's his site and I also agree with him for what that matters. Debate is GREAT! Eye-scratching cat fights make me depressed. We're supposed to all be Conservatives here and if not you get the zot. The shallow name-calling "religious" wars are, well, very off-putting to say the least.
Long Live Free Republic. Someone needs to keep the peace. JimRob does.
I would tend to agree. I had scaled back my FR involvement in recent months until just recently because it seemed like the jerks were starting to take over the place, and I was being sucked into flame wars that I didn't really want to be in, but had acquired a "stake" in because of defending somebody who was the object of unwarranted attacks. Not just the evos either, mind you. There seems to be a certain subset of FReeper on here who can't handle it when people disagree with them - it immediately becomes personal.
Oh and one other thing - I've seen little in the way of actual religious "bigotry" on here. I've seen a lot of religious debates, sometimes heated, but I don't qualify the mere act of disagreeing with someone else's religion as "bigotry," as some on here seem to. In fact, I'm just the opposite - I've been meaning to write an essay, never gotten around to it yet, as to why religious debate is GOOD for a pluralistic society. Quite the opposite of the "don't talk about it because people might get offended and think you're a bigot!" mentality.