ALL CREATURES THAT SWIM IN THE OCEANS WITH FINS ARE NOT FISH

I CERTAINLY do not at all take the position that "all religious conservatives" are nut jobs. There are many nut jobs in the DEM Party. They are all over. Like a disease, actually.

Religion is a matter of personal revelation. If the universe has revealed to you something you religiously believe, and you feel good going and singing about it and making up rules about it--peachy. That's fine.

I don't want my belief in it to be a secret  litmus test for my patriotism or political worth.  

Also, frankly, I do not want someone as President who believes the world is 5000 years old, who thinks God lives on a nearby planet, supervising baby souls getting born, who thinks the "end times" are upon us and everyone but the Christian "saved" will vaporize, or that God is visiting people and distributing mysterious Golden plates commanding we not drink coffee. 

However, I have CLEARLY stated that the Tea party started out with valid concerns and ideas, e.g., Washington must REPRESENT us if they are to TAX us....a need to control spending ( a lesson GWB should have sat in on) - the need to control public assistance, to reassess Medicare, to demolish the DOE, etc. What I said is that they have now been co-opted by religious right nut jobs, and thereafter, co-opted the legitimate Republican party, which is getting so far right and whacked out that even Regan, Christ, Ford and Eisenhower wouldn't have belonged to it, as it exists today.