I'm well aware of that. We may have different perspectives of the religious right due to our geographical positions. I'm in Southern VA and have put up with subtle and overt bigotry for years. The in your face hateful stuff comes from protestants, typical right wing evangelicals. Like when a large Baptist Church in the area invites Ian Paisley to come over and preach a revival. That's preceded by weeks of hate filled, ignorant and barely coherent letters to the editor of the local paper damning all Catholics to hell, just as a warm up. Then we get a week of Paisley denouncing the Pope , denouncing Catholics and making hateful statemnets to the press and then a couple of weeks of other crap after he leaves. Thankfully he hasn't been here in a while but it's no secret where folks sentiments lie.
As for me. I'm a Catholic who is politically conservative but I'm not part of the 'Religious Right'.
Neither am I. Not, at least, in the neo-con sense that seems to pervade the tattered remains of the Republican Party. But I was speaking in "received generalities" to keep the keystrokes down while I'm here at work. I was just trying to differentiate left-leaning Northeast and West Coast Catholics (like the kind all-too-common in my neck of the woods) from the politically conservative Catholics (myself included) still out there. As you relate your experiences at the hands of the "mainstream" Religious Right in your area, you certainly have my sympathy. But, on many issues outside purely religious considerations, they are still our allies, even if they feel the need to take hourly showers when in proximity to us. God's time is not our time. I try to remember that. It's what gets me through...