Terrorism or Religion?

Suppose a headline reads, "Hoodlums smear bloody gang symbol on government property!"
 
Wouldn't we be outraged?
 
Well, what if the "hoodlums" are nuns and the "gang symbol" is a cross?  Here's the story.
 
It appears that religion is receiving a special privilege here.  Tax exemption is another special privilege.  The right to ring those out-of-tune gongs in church steeples on Sunday morning without getting arrested for excessive noise is another special privilege.
 
And in my community, every year at noon on Good Friday, a group of Episcopal and Catholic priests and parishioners block traffic for a cross-carrying parade without bothering to get a parade permit.  They've never been arrested.
 
The first of the rights promised in the First Amendment is freedom of religion.  To me, that means freedom to practice your religion, not freedom to annoy other people with your religion.
 
Now, what do you make of our religious politicians?  It doesn't bother me a bit for politicians to be religious.  What bothers me is that they fall all over each other trying to prove how religious they are in order to get votes.  That's not a reflection on the politicians' integrities, it's a reflection on the moronic mentality of the American public.
 
If an atheist, or a Hindu, or a Muslim, or a believer in Zorb the Sacred Crocodile were to run for public office, he'd barely get a vote, no matter what the superiority of his qualifications may be.
 
Now, I'm all for freedom of religion.  But I'm not for special privileges for religion.