The phrase "Fundamentalist Republican" is getting thrown around here. I think that we need to clarify that term.

We have Republicans, which have a political philosophy. These are not bad guys, they just have a different but valid opinions, and occassionally, they even happen to get something right :) Opposing opinions are the lifeblood of democracy. Many of these republicans, no doubt, happen to be Christian, but they separate their personal idealogy from the running of the country.

Then we have Fundamentalist Christians masquerading as a political party. They don't have political opinions, they have religious ones. In a country whose foundations of government are built on the separation of religious idealogy from political, this is very dangerous, because they would attempt to legislate a code of religious behavior and force it upon those who don't agree. The big red herring here is abortion rights, but in reality we are looking at a religious idealogy which views women as reproductive vessels whose only purpose is to create more Fundamentalist Christian males.

Then we have people like my grandfather. He's a devout Methodist deacon, who, politically speaking, is really a Democrat. But his Republican candidates get up there and wave a Bible, and so he votes Republican -- even though he disagrees with almost everything they stand for. Now, he was astonished when I told him he was a idealogically a moderate Democrat, because it never occured to him that many Democrats read the Bible, too.

In other words, I don't think it's fair to condemn "Republicans" for the idealogy of some.