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I just got caught up a bit on the thread. Whew. I think I can understand why you may have been a bit on the "touchy" side. Honestly, you did not come across that way to me.

In my experiences at Republican conventions, the religious right were extremely abusive individuals. They were far worse than liberals. The liberals used foul language, but couldn't hold a candle to the religious right in outright verbal abuse.

Most other Christians went out of their way to make it clear that "those folks do not represent us", to the point of visible shame and embarrassment. Due to their concentration of numbers in Republican party politics, conventions see a whole lot more of them than are represented elsewhere. It happens a lot here on FR as well.

We used to laugh at them at first (at the conventions). You could see them coming; red-faced, fists clenched at their sides, many wearing home-made clothing based on designs that went out of style in the 19th century, looking for somebody with a button that said "STAFF" on it, so that they could verbally detonate upon the 'forces of evil' in a tirade that truly has to be seen to be believed.

(Just in case anybody was wondering where I attained my talent for flame wars...)

Vile creatures, truly vile. Somebody earlier referred to them as "the Mullas of Christianity", and they weren't so far off. If that particular faction of the party ever gains the power which they so desperately lust after, they will be little different than the Taliban (no burkas, anyways - at least probably not). This same faction is the more vocal of the proponents of ID, and has even joined forces with Islam in an attempt to attain their goals. They make all of Christianity look bad.

And, no, I never for one microsecond thought that you were one of them.

I have met people like that. They are usually the ones fueling the fire behind rumors that stir up factions within a church congregation and cause it to split.

We homeschool, and the group we met with before our move is religious in nature, but it is nondenominational, and not restricted. We were very clear that it is a Christian group, but if non-Christians wish to meet with us we encourage it. Unfortunately, the people who have caused the most problems over the years have not been non-Christians, but Christians who were uncomfortable about religious overtones of the group. I know exactly why this was so. I grew up in a church that preached that all other denominations were wrong. I do not believe that now, and I don't teach that to my children. We do have some member of our Homeschool support group that attend a church of that belief. It is fine for them to meet with other homeschoolers of other denominations as long as God is not discussed. Our group does pray, and attempts to serve the community as a positive Christian influence. The problem is that these people feel that they are condoning something they think is wrong, that being the Christian beliefs of other denominations, if they engage in prayer and worship with us. They would rather leave it out all together, even though they are very likely homeschooling for religious reasons themselves. So, in our group they have continually pushed for it to become secular. There may be a need for a secular group within the community, but that was not the principle that this group was founded on. I served as President of our group for three years. We encountered this push by a few loud people from time to time. My response was always that the group was formed with the intent of being a Christian group, and 95% of the members wished to keep it that way. I sympathized with the fact that they were uncomfortable, and understood that they may not wish to meet with us because of this. I kindly told them that we would not be changing the structure of the group to accommodate them, but would support them if they wished to start their own support group. Exactly zero of them ever did. All they wanted to do was fuss. Sometimes they would quit coming for a while, then show back up. The fussing died down when they realized it wouldn't go anywhere, but the moment they thought they had traction it would pick back up. This happened when we moved and a new President took over. She tried to accommodate them a little, and they only got louder. These peoples numbers within the group have never grown, even though the group itself has, but they still make it very difficult at times.