Wolfgang is probably right in quoting Jesus as approving of the death penalty in that case, though I know of no Christian administration which imposes it for cursing one's parents. I think he also said something about millstones. That's not the point. The thinking Christians have gone a long way beyond the letter of the Bible, old or new, and have accepted- proclaimed- that what was offered was not a prescription or a set of inviolable rules, but a framework to guide thinking. Christians of this sort have been at the forefront of many of the great campaigns- against slavery, against capital punishment, for social justice, for civic freedoms, against poverty, for equality. But there still seems to be something of the attitude that diehard Communists used to have in the seventies- to deny the evidence of Stalinism in their case. It was all propoganda, you can't believe the enemy. So some people seem to see any criticism of the fundies as criticism of themselves.

It seems to me that "Christian" is not even a useful label- You can't tell anything about a person's beliefs from it, as it encompasses the range from one extreme to another. This is one of the extremes; I'm very happy that most Christians here are much closer to the opposite pole. And it's nice to see people with the courage to speak out on the subject, even if it exposes the raw truth that you can't have unity with polar opposites.

I think the Ugandan obscenity is best seen in terms of a movement which is competing for members, rather than trying to lead them. In societies in which men feel they have to prove their masculinity- often because they are economically marginalised in post- colonial societies- they may well suffer from gender insecurity and fear of being identified as un- masculine. Failing to support hardliners coukld be one way of avoiding the charge of softness.