I know! Let's play a fun game where the entire right end of the blogiverse gets all bent out of shape about something a guy who's been industrial-strength crazy for months now wrote about evangelicals.

I might as well make myself plain here, before I forget my manners and tell a particular commenter who's been aggravating the bejesus (whoops!) out of me to get in line behind Angela: I'm a Catholic who was raised Mormon. Do you know what that means? That means born-agains give me a monstrous pain in the ass. Years of being "witnessed to" by them, of being told you're not a "real" Christian, will do that to a person.

I know that I should be tolerant of these people, but without a divine intervention that tolerance ain't materializing in me anytime soon. Rosaries only get you so far. And the tolerance ain't happening for the purely secular reason that I don't like suggestive selling, which is precisely the activity evangelicals feel "called" to do. As I said to this woman once in an email, if I had wanted a side of Jesus with that, I'd have ordered Him.

And actually, I'm not even sure it's the witnessing I mind as much as the inevitable moaning and wailing and loud-ass lamentation about how persecuted Christians are when a cranky old bitch like myself points them to the "no soliciting" sign. Or when someone says, you know, maybe the 10 Commandments don't need to be in the courthouse. Or you know, maybe creationism doesn't have any place in the classroom. Or you know, maybe Florence King had a point about the pledge sounding better without the God stuff in it. Or when anyone says anything against them, why, EVER.

It's an awfully thin-skinned version of Christianity in my book. You know, the guy Christians claim to follow put up with a good deal worse than playground-grade insults from Bob Herbert and Derango-Man. So suck it up. Let's have a little stiff upper lip about the faith, or is that too Anglican a concept? Maybe a quiz would help clarify my point a little:

Christians were last free from persecution:

(a) . . . in Jesus' day
(b) . . . during the 12th century
(c) . . . during the Reformation
(d) . . . NEVER

People don't like it when you force your beliefs on them. They don't like it when you get in their faces and try to save them--yes, even when you say "please" and "thank you" while you're doing it.

And they get nervous when they hear rumors that the President believes he's been called by God, because . . . because you're supposed to get nervous about that. Because what if, and I know it's a radical concept, but what if you're an American citizen who's NOT among the chosen and maybe even, GASP, doesn't ever want to be?

Is Layne overreacting? Shit, people, do fish swim? The overreacting is sort of his schtick anymore, I don't know if you noticed. But it's not the left I'm finding nearly as obnoxious on this score as it is the defensive, whining, we-don't-want-to-convert-you-we-just-want-to-CONVERT-you faux Christians on the right.

Sorry, but you people will definitely not be admitted into the confederacy of fun. You can stand just outside the gates and witness to each other instead.