My Honest-to-God (!) Last Post About Religion (for now)

Frank Rich of NYT writes about "The God Racket", featuring Yul Brynner, Tom DeLay and a cast of thousands, coming to a formerly-secular space near you:

In that famous Election Day exit poll, "moral values" voters amounted to only 22 percent. Similarly, an ABC News survey last weekend found that only 27 percent of Americans thought it was "appropriate" for Congress to "get involved" in the Schiavo case and only 16 percent said it would want to be kept alive in her condition. But a majority of American colonists didn't believe in witches during the Salem trials either - any more than the Taliban reflected the views of a majority of Afghans. At a certain point - and we seem to be at that point - fear takes over, allowing a mob to bully the majority over the short term. (Of course, if you believe the end is near, there is no long term.)

For the record, I do NOT believe the end is near, so I assume that at some point the short term will end when Americans get fed up with being bullied and fed up with the spinelessness of a media that panders to bullies. In fact, I think we ought to start using the b-word every chance we get. It conjures up an image that every kid who ever got his-or-her ass whupped (figuratively and otherwise) can relate to. Talk about your unifying cultural experience--there you have it.