Christian terrorists and Christian theocracy

The idea of screening refugees by religion and allowing only Christians into the US has been suggested by Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz and supported by others, based on the notion that these people would be unlikely to be terrorists. Cruz has been quite explicit on this topic, saying, “There is no meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror. If there were a group of radical Christians pledging to murder anyone who had a different religious view than they, we would have a different national security situation”.
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Trump and the Republican id

Whatever one might think of the politics of Donald Trump, there is no question that he seems to have an unerring knack for gauging the visceral feelings of the small group of Republican supporters who play a disproportionately large role in the Republican primary process. He seems to know exactly what buttons to push so while the pundit class takes each outrageous statement of his as the sign that this time he really has gone too far and that people will now abandon him, in reality his popularity remains undiminished or even increases.
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The defection of Megan Phelps-Roper from the Westboro Baptist Church

The Westboro Baptist Church is notorious for its anti-gay focus and activities and its claims that god is going to destroy America because of its accommodation of homosexuality. The primary slogan of the church and the most prominent sign displayed at their pickets is “God Hates Fags” and even the church’s website URL is godhatesfags.com.
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Planned Parenthood, sex education, and LGBT inclusivity enough to get people mad

A meeting of the Omaha Public Schools board drew about 1,000 people and ended up in a screaming match that resulted in the meeting ending early. Why? It turned out that the school board was making some minor revisions to its existing sex education course (which is optional) by making it more gender inclusive and word had been spread that this new curriculum was being designed by the latest incarnation of evil, Planned Parenthood (which was a totally false rumor) and was going to be glorifying all manner of sex, and the abstinence-only crowd was up in arms.
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Westboro Baptist Church goes after meteorologists and Kim Davis

The Westboro Baptist Church needs no introduction. Their over-the-top anti-gay rhetoric and tactics are the stuff of legend and have raised their visibility far, far beyond what its tiny membership (largely consisting of one family) could reasonably expect. So much so that one wonders if the church is not practicing some kind of performance art. But they face the same problem as the extremists in the Republican party and Playboy magazine in that they have to keep raising the level of outrageousness in order to compete with the alternatives now easily available on the internet. But like the Republican party and unlike Playboy, they have not thrown in the towel. They keep persevering.
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Religious demands for special treatment get even more extreme

It looks like the publicity surrounding Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis’s claims that her private religious beliefs should allow her to disobey any law she thinks is wrong has encouraged other crazies to adopt her attitude and demand that their ‘freedom of religion’ means that their religious practices and privileges take precedence over everything else and everybody else’s rights.
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Anti-Islam protests turned out rather differently

Last Sunday was supposed to be when a ‘Global Rally for Humanity’ was to occur which sounds like a good thing but in reality was the incongruous name given to the day when protestors were supposed to fan out to mosques across the nation to protest the presence of Muslims in the US. But at least at some venues, the event did not turn out quite as the organizers planed. For one thing, in many locations no protestors turned up at all while at others, counter-protestors outnumbered the protestors. In fact, the planned protests ended up generating solidarity between Muslims and their neighbors in the communities and between protestors and counter-protestors.
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