All Comments on 'Puritanism in America'

Like you I think we should both be free to address our grievances without recrimination. I'll also agree that many church going adults still don't "get it". It's not to be compared to a football game where its "our team against the bad guys".

I find your statements of parents dressing children up as fashion models to be an exaggeration. I haven't seen a child dressed like that in probably 5 years. People just don't dress up for church anymore that I have seen. Even ushers are wearing blue jeans and a tshirt now.

On abortion we do disagree still. The child inside the womans body is more than just a tumor to be eliminated and it represents "genetic material" from more than just the woman. Infants are viable at 21 weeks now so abortion after that stage is to me as much murder as the day after birth.

We are a big country with differing ideas and I am glad we still have the right to disagree.

The left wing P.C. is a much bigger threat to all freedom than anything else in this country. The A.C.L.U. has taken away more individual rights than any one group and nobody is less tolerant than the left. If you are in the media being called a racist is death, your career is over, thats why the inner city and crime problems keep growing because there is no honest discussion. No one cares if you smoke pot, drink too much, jack off or suck dicks and dance around in panties and a bra, most stright men don't like your stories and wouldn't hang with you. Nothing is going to change that.

are the reasons I have no use for the phony pieces of shit now. Everything is always a plot in their eyes. They are the fucking reborn Taliban. The only difference in the so called "Christians" of today and the Taliban and Mullahs of Islam is that the "Christian Fundamentalists" have not figured out how to murder the people who make the laws and get away with it YET. The people in most of the phony Fundamentalist churches around here are worthless rich assed Republican SUV driving, Pharisee right wingers who have more interest in Republican politics than the gospel of Jesus Christ and any type of things he commanded his "Church" to do. One Assembly of God" (John Ashcroft's Church" sets off fireworks every year as "God's Work" and could care less if the homeless are fed, the naked clothed, the mourning comforted, or any other beatitude adhered to as is described in the Christian bible. I have read a lot of teaching in the bible and have yet to find anyplace it says for the "Christians to set off a hundred grand worth of fireworks a year with the tithes and offerings of the rich and poor alike. Course now when you join the church, they inquire as to what the potential church member's income is so they will know in advance if the new member is going to be a contributing member or a drain and stain on the wealthy. Throughout history there have been a hell of a lot more people killed in the name of religion than there ever has been over power grabbing, greed, or anything else. Even WW@ was basically over religion They ought to take all the sons a bitches to an Island somewhere , drop em off with enough of everything to kill each other off, let one religion, win, whether it be Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Budhist, or whatever . Then let them fight each other to the death. Whoever wins that then should be nuked. The rest of the world would then be a safe place in which to live devoid of any religions. There are good people in all religions but the leaders of those organizations have done everything they can to pollute the true meaning of that religion and bastardize them where it is now a group of fanatics trying to tell their members what is good and what is bad based of what they say rather than what the books of their ancestors tell them.

...to see that there still exists people with common sence in the states.

while this person is entittled to his opinion,it has no place here,by and large i have my concept of right and wrong but i do not try to foist it off on others,i logged on to read sexual conccept stories hopfully fanacy...

While it was mildly refreshing to have your comment that you are not anti-church and that you accept that people have a right to worship as they please, that part of your article seems to be in conflict with the first paragraph, most certainly, and with the bulk of the remainder. No one is forcing you to attend church, or to worship in a certain manner, or even to worship at all. Yes, there is a small percentage who will be overly "energetic" about attempting to help you, but that always has been and always will be true of any given belief system, ideology, or worldview. But generally speaking, the vast majority are quite willing to present a case and allow you to make your own decision. On the abortion issue (since you raised the point), it seems to be that the group most militant is the pro-choice crowd. What about the baby's right to choose? By your own admission, what about the biological father's right to choose? [And don't start beating on me about word selection. Pregnant cows give birth to baby cattle; pregnant horses give birth to baby horses; pregnant women give birth to baby humans. I haven't yet heard of a pregnant elephant giving birth to 800pounds of cabbage.] Indeed, it seems that your concern about being coerced into worshipping in an "acceptable" manner is misplaced. Whereas Christians and Jews are quite willing to present their belief system and allow you to make your own choices, that doesn't work quite so well with militant Muslims. For them, it seems that you either embrace Islam or you are an infidel and are worthy of being murdered, or are allowed to exist (in their view of a perfect world) as a second-class citizen. And I say that without getting into the issue of the sticky issues of women's rights and gay's rights. So while you're off choosing to decline to worship, consider life under the Taliban or under Sharia law. Be glad you have the choices you do, and consider doing some research on those elements of this topic.

-- KK in Texas

A well written and tempered piece.

a writer of the worst most vile dumbs ass cuckold crap EVER written is concerned about the far right?

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who gives a fuck?

There was 1 reason and 1 reason ONLY the Major that killed 13 in Ft Hood masscare was NOT in Jail. The Army and FBI investigators were afraid of being branded as Bigots or Anti Arab or racist or all three.

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Which far right wing christian Kook has gone on a murderous rampage shooting 10...15...20 folks? Except for a few abortion doctors... NONE.

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McVeight was Nazi NOT a far right christian.

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The fundies are nuts to be sure but MOST of the time they want Dumb things... creationism .... or sex education restrictions or altered textbooks.

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To argue that the fundies are the REAL threat is well laughable. A problem? sure...

in "the good ol' USA". How about you clean out your own back-yard before you start cleaning out every one elses?

Gosh Harry I seem to remember a son of a bitch called Tim McVey and his buddy Terry McNichol (the Christian guidance counselor of the two) that did 168 in Okla. city a few years ago with fertilizer. and the jesus loving idiot that did a bunch of people in Atlanta Ga. The bomb did not discriminate against abortion doctors or plain folks and then authorities had to chase the son of a bitch for two years before they caught him. Then there came old George W. Bush that was on his "Great Crusade" in Iraq to bring Jesus to the heathen hordes there. All religious nutcakes are a shit stain on humanity. Kill em all and let whichever God is in charge sort the fuckers out.

I like the way you speak on the religious right, to them anyone who doesn't go to their church and worship in the exact way they condemn you for being a sinner or worse,I am a member of a church and I am allowed to worship in my way. My beliefs are my own.

When the elite leftists say 'tolerance' what they are really saying is "If you are a Republican, STFU." Fortunately, we have relearned a lesson taught in 1940 Poland; Do not give up and go quietly. Have you ever talked to the people promoting thier religious beliefs? They are generally nice people who are following through with what thier religion asks of them. Spread the word of God as far and wide as possible. Every religion asks thier followers to do this at some time in thier life. Next time you are in the store, tell the cashier; "Merry Christmas" and watch thier reaction.

I may disagree with you, but I have and will defend your right to speak your piece. I think the thing these zealots forget is the thing they object to is the very thing that facilitates their existence: FREEDOM.

This is not just a word. It is a concept. The easiest way to define freedom in a social context is "Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose." From this context it can be derived that these mindless sheeple are sociopathic in the truest sense.

Anybody with unlimited power becomes Stalin or Hitler, thats what people do, have always done and always will. Left against right is what has given us a chance, but in the last year we have moved much closer to socialism and a lot of people think thats great, they just never understood history, people don't change, they just change the name. Castro and Obama have a lot in common, a lot of the same goals and if he could he would rule here just like Castro, for the better good of all, of course. So before you sign on bakeboss, check out the gay life in Cuba, talk about underground.

I must say that you are right on this one i must admit that the chinese have it right religon is poison, while wont tell people what they can and cant belive its sad to me that some many lives are wasted and hurt because of it.

AMEN!! Brother Bakeboss. The Right wing religious zealots and the Republican party deserve one another. They're all lying hypocriticle fuckers who don't deserve the feedoms they have. If they had their way we would be living just like the people of Afganistan praying to God 5 times a day and no Healthcare.

Christian religious zealots are the 'American' taliban

....the fucking wacko creationists dominating the religious right are much scarier than you make out.They come up with inane statements like the fool who condemns the ACLU-the only group in America fighting for the Ideals embodied,(supposedly) by BOTH the left and the right,they make sops like HIV forget about Christian psychos like Charles Whitman,(library tower at (I believe) Texas U in the 60's)-they show their complete lack of understanding of socioeconomics by comparing an (actually) not that liberal President to a socialist,they make statements like "the baby's right to choose",while ignoring the 10 million children that die on this planet every fucking year(by the way buddy,send me a list of all the grievances you can recall from when you were in the womb)and worst of all they rant about being "true patriots" when they don't know the first thing about the founding of this nation or the values and principles debated by the founding fathers,most of whom were very pious yet understood why a society MUST have separation of church or state in order to meet the needs of democracy.And thus they start and conscript our most naive members into fighting for nebulous causes(though usually economic) without regard to whether it is morally correct.All organized religions are not prone to this.Unitarians never join in, nor do Quakers and the only times I've heard of Buddhists fighting is over economic or cultural fairness,not religion.But the major fundamentalist religions(Jewish,Christian,Islamic,Hindu etc) will go the way of the Dodo, as access to education brings true enlightenment and freedom to the masses.Just not in the conceivable future!-pistolpackinpetenotevenstartedyet

It's Bush's fault. We abort babies "for the sake of the children." Algore has profited by hundreds of millions of your dollars by selling fear of "global warming", even while the earth has been cooling since 1998. Michael Moore's condemnation of capitalism has earned him over $200 million throughout his career. The right to an abortion is a clear and well defined right spelled out directly in the Constitution, yet the "right to keep and bear arms" means you have no rights to either own or carry a firearm. Algore promotes low carbon emissions while flying all across the world in private airplanes. Alec Baldwin promotes himself as a great family man, then screams at his 11 year old daughter, calling her "a disgusting little pig." Bill Maher says on national tv that you're too stupid to make your own decisions and need to be dragged over to his point of view. Rosie O'Donnell says that if you own a gun, you should be put in prison, but then required her bodyguards to obtain concealed carry permits to guard her children IN THEIR SCHOOL. While condemning Dick Cheney for owning Haliburton stock, Michael Moore owned several million dollars of Haliburton stock. Nancy Pelosi constantly promotes unions and their workers, yet bans union workers from her hotels, restaurants, and wineries. The liberal media constantly promoted Cindy Sheehan when she bashed George W. Bush. Yet, when Cindy started bashing Nancy Pelosi, the liberal media blackballed her and refused to put her on air. Barbra Streisand promotes free speech, yet sued a non-profit historical society when they published a single picture of her Malibu home. Senator Ted Kennedy promoted alternative energy sources like wind power, but then used all of his political might to kill a wind farm that would have been visible from his oceanfront compound. Michael Moore bashed HMOs in a movie, while profiting from owning stock in several HMOs. Liberal Barbra Streisand promotes consumerism as being unhealthy, yet has an annual bill of $22,000 for watering her lawn. Bill and Hillary Clinton constantly promote the benefits of average Americans paying higher taxes, then use lucrative tax shelters to pay less in taxes, including claiming a tax deduction for donating a pair of his used underwear to charity. Senator Al Franken has charged several individuals, groups, and even a university of being racist, yet fewer than 1 percent of Franken's employees are black. Ralph Nader promotes the benefits of unions, yet fired his own employees when they attempted to unionize. Michael Moore is perhaps the greatest proponent of unions in the US, yet he outsources production on his films to Canada so he won't have to use union workers and pay union wages. California Senator Feinstein willingly admitted she would ban all guns in the US, even while maintaining her own concealed carry permit and owning a firearm for protection. Throughout his career, Senator Ted Kennedy constantly voted to disarm Americans and prevent them from protecting themselves, even while his own bodyguard owned and carried a pistol and 2 sub-machine guns. When his illegal bodyguard was caught, Kennedy claimed the guns were for his protection. Handgun Control's Sarah Brady promotes banning most firearms, even though she and her husband own a large collection of fully automatic machine guns. While constantly excoriating private companies that accepted government bailout money and calling for them to give the money back, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann accepted a $3.5 million pay raise, which came shortly after MSNBC's parent company accepted billions in government bailout money. Olbermann has refused to give back the money. Candidate Barack Obama many times denounced the FISA courts under President George W. Bush. Yet, when offered the opportunity to ban the FISA courts, President Barack Obama did an about face. Under President Obama, the FISA courts are operating under the same guidelines as they did during President Bush's presidency. In 2003, Barack Obama told the AFL/CIO that he was a proponent of a single payer universal healthcare system. In 2008, Obama said he never promoted a single payer universal healthcare system. Barack Obama once said that keeping our soldiers in Iraq long enough to win the war was a "moral obligation." Just six months later, Obama declared that the US "should have brought the troops home yesterday." While campaigning, candidate Obama declared, "Lobbyists won't find a job in my White House." As of today, 30 of President Obama's senior administration officials have served as lobbyists in just the past 5 years. Candidate Obama pledged to post bills on the internet for 5 days before signing them. President Obama first broke this pledge only 9 days into his administration and has broken this pledge dozens of times since... Just remember 1 thing about all these examples of liberal hipocrisy: It's all Bush's fault.

....you wasted a lot of your time pointing out obvious instances of hypocrisy from the many "limousine liberals" in this country but how does that refute what the author and others are saying.Me,I hate both major political parties but it sounds like you've sucked at the tit of one of them for a long time now eh?-pistolpackinpete

The religious right are neither.

See above

no hate mail here! I consider myself religious but I agree with everything you said.

Pro choice people are not pro abortion, they are pro choice. There are a lot of variants in "moral behavior" but not in forced belief...evil stuff this is. Thank you!