[Daniel]

Yes. I agree with you. Our Constitutional Republic prevents a good many bad things from happening.

My point was this: fundamentalism, of whatever stripe, leads away from religious and political freedom. Isn't that obvious? Those who take Leviticus seriously (and there are a great many people who do) in this country would, absent the aforementioned consitution, ignore the later and enforce their version of the former on everyone. They would, to my mind, be no better than Iraqi clerics. Should we let them run the country? No. Why don't they? Because of efforts like the Equality Ride. That's the right kind of preemption.