But isn't that the more tortured of possible ways of looking at it? I mean, it totally forfeits meaning and not at a small price. It's not that "fundamentalists" believe in the fundamentals of their faith that is the problem, is it? Isn't it the fundamentals themselves?

To define otherwise implies the inability for any religious group to believe in their fundamentals (without being impugned), right?

The "fundamentalist" tag is just a shortcut. It's become a perjorative term meaning "extreme", NOT "fundamental". And the perpetuation of this misnomer leads one to believe that it is somehow wrong to believe in the fundamentals of one's faith.

And that, in turn, makes it easier to discount the opinions of the religious in the public square -- they are merely "fundamentalist".

Essentially, thus, the religious right (for example) gets convicted of the crimes of the muslim extremist because the crime is "fundamentalism". That is weak logic.

We would hardly similarly discount the fundamentals of Ghandi's or Martin Luther King's faith, would we? Yet they acted out of religious purpose.