Hm.

Looking back on the Guardian talkboards, I found this(*) post from a poster who in the previous two years was among the many US liberals dismissing my worries about the Religious Right as silly paranoia of a clueless anti-American European:

Guardian Talk International
How can Liberal America regain control from the faith-based fundamentalists?

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Started by RegimeChange04 at 02:43pm Nov 4, 2004 BST

prufrockjr - 04:50pm Nov 4, 2004 BST (#27 of 408)

I was once unworried about the religious right. I’m over that. My previous blithe self is rapidly becoming a fretful mess. It wasn’t just the re-election of Bush that did it. I as watching the election results Tuesday night, and feeling somewhat hopeful things would go the right way, and when I say the right way, I of course mean my way. Well, that didn’t happen and I grumbled and uttered a number of pissy little things, then tried to do what Americans have always done, or should, wish the man in office all the luck in world and go to bed.

Here’s what kept me up; numbers, specifically, the lopsided numbers regarding definition of marriage. A huge majority had voted for amending state constitutions with a traditional definition of marriage. Man, woman, picket fence and Jesus. I’m entirely comfortable with the notion that people think differently from me and I believe they come to their own political and social conclusions as honestly and thoughtfully as I do. They may go about it in ways I don’t or use sources I don’t, but that’s never bothered me, until Tuesday. Well, it was on Tuesday that I realized I’ve been lying to myself, anyway.

I sat there looking at these numbers in a state of bewilderment. How could, in some cases, eighty plus percent of the electorate be so idiotic? Then it struck me; maybe I’m the idiot? I mean, look at all those red states. It seemed an alien nation, and many ways, for liberal Democrats, it is. As I was thinking about the definition of marriage vote, I mentioned to someone that I don’t have any friends who feel this way. She agreed. We also agreed that we don’t have any friends who aren’t pro-choice, anti-death penalty, pro-gay rights or anti-George Bush. It struck us that we barely know anyone who attends church. I have only one close friend who can be described as even mildly religious. One. No one we know reads the Bible. No one we know believes in Jesus. No one we know takes seriously anything Jerry Falwell has ever said. We view his ilk as superstitious buffoons and feign tolerance toward them, because we believe them stupid. We’re the Insufferable Minority, and we’re in a cocoon. The Right also exists in a cocoon; just a much larger, more organized and better funded cocoon.

That’s why Kerry didn’t make a dint in the Red Sates and that’s why the Democratic party, as its being lead today, will continue to be viewed as the party of supercilious jerks who want to ram a Godless agenda down the throats of Americans; for their own good of course. So I asked myself, do I want to ram a Godless agenda down the throats of Americans, for their own good? Yes, I absolutely do. [DoDo: Heh, I can can with that!] Just as they wish to push their gag-inducing blueprint down mine. We’ve reached a point of total gridlock. It would be fascinating, if it weren’t so depressing.

(*): GU Talk doesn't archive old threads, so this link will work probably only for weeks.