I would just like to say, that Jim's attitude is symptomatic of the new "liberalism" which I have been railing against for some time.
WE see it on the UK political threads and to a lesser extent on the Sarah Palin threads in the US.

It is a need to silence, or kill any dissent to the current popular view.....it gets in the way of meaningful discussion.

How do I know this?.....because for many years, I was Jim, a communist demagogue who would accept nothing but the true path.
I even started to avoid reading articles which disagreed with my strongly held beliefs, even when the authors had no particular axe to grind.
The strength of this forum, is that as Joe says we are basically all friends, I feel I know some here better than I know many people in real life.
We all wear our hearts on our sleeve, but Joe is correct to stamp down on PERSONAL abuse.
If this was allowed to continue Mudcat would become a boxing booth, not a discussion forum.....and could not continue.

On bigotry, I try to back my arguments with statistics and evidence which appears to support my position, as far as I am aware, BIGOTRY is an unreasoning hatred of particular racial or other minority groups.
I am not anti-homosexual, that would be a ridiculous statement, homosexuals are among us, they require help and understanding, not manipulation into a political weapon for the "liberal left".
THE OLD DIVIDE AND RULE