I meant 'occasional' in the sense that such abuses, while lamentable, are not as widespread in some parts of the world as in others. I was not suggesting that the abuse which occurred within them was not unhappily perpetual.

Unacceptable practices committed in the name of religion are unfortunately far too widespread indeed, and I agree not only in one religion. But I still maintain that there is one influential and large segment of one particular religion in which they seem to far too great an extent to be one of the faith's raisons-d'être, rather than an exception to its generally declared intention or modus operandi; and that an element of false equivalence may be suggested by making the comparison without sufficient moderation or qualification.

~M~