[k2blader]

Second, how are Christians supposed to feel when members of this administration (Colin Powell) reiterate, in not as strong words of this article, the same meaning in their public speeches?

Well, this Christian is still waiting for consistency from the administration regarding "religious tolerance."

[Citizen of the United States]

Religious tolerance is a complicated, amorphous thing. At the risk of sounding like a former President of the United States, what does "tolerance" mean, if one genuinely considers it?

The Caudillo "tolerated" non-Catholic religions in his Spain, but certainly not in the sense that the concept is understood by most United States citizens.

On a side note, it is important that one distinguish religion from ideology. Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler were Roman Catholics; though both men were my brothers in faith, I abhor their actions -- actions which were the products not of their religion, but of their National-Sociliastic ideology.

Islam is a religion; Islamism is an ideology. They are not identical; I personally have known a Muslim heathen who was in every way a moral, honest, civically responsible human being. He is no more a terrorist than I am a member of the Schutzstaffel.

One can easily argue that the National-Socialists, the Communists of the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea, the Khmer Rouge, and the Islamists are far more like one another than not; their murderous totalitarian ideologies are what dictate their behaviour, rather than their religious identities (generally speaking, Christian, atheist, and Islamic).

Conversely, those ideologies most emphatically do not identify practitioners of those religions. I know many atheists who are not Communists; I know many Muslims who are not Islamists; I know many Christians who are not National-Socialists. One finds it convenient (albeit somewhat misleading, and admittedly so) to use geometry: A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not necessarily a square.

[billbears]

Well you might as well keep waiting if Powell's statements ring true. This is one set of knees that will not bow to Mecca.