Well said, Joe.

One of the problems is when there is a push, there is a push back. That is not always a rational response.

Intolerance is intolerable. Ad-hominem name calling is never a legitimate foundation for a rational discussion.

The Mudcatters that use insults to promote their views are "shooting themselves in the foot."

Intolerance is the enemy of Freethought.

I respect a rational discussion that may contain disagreement as a valid form of discourse but not insults, name-calling or verbal violence (that's what it is).

Views of religion must be very personal and not evidence to be defended in a court of law unless they transgress the Separation that Thomas Jefferson so brilliantly called for.

Fortunately, Americans have a legacy in our Constitution, The First Amendment, a brilliant idea that endures regardless of how some in the Wrong Wing spin it.

Regardless of whether it's a discussion of religion, politics,philosophy or whatever,
insults, intolerance and anger have little place in it.

You can have a sense of justice which may contain outrage, but ultimately the anger is not what prevails when justice has finally arrived. A strategic goal, well thought out,
peacefully articulated with clarity and conviction will win in the pages of history.

The Constitution, the First Amendment, has made Americans the beneficiary of a wise idea and we have inherited a sense of proportional justice that carries over today in our
nurturance of organized labor, the common good, equality and tolerance that defines us.