That is the fundamental problem I have with the religious extremists: They seem to have no concept of "equality".
I couldn't agree more. Indeed, the very concept of allowing faith to control your life and perceptions is to assume that
you are superior to your non-same-believing fellows. You have "the answer" and "the authority" of your chosen text which represents the "word of god." Being of the "chosen" - and god makes many, and often conflicting, choices, apparently - puts you in a different, and superior, status.
I am not saying that all people of faith are blind adherents incapable of rational or compassionate thought, but those that place "the word of god" above the "law of the land," or even rational thought, are pernicious indeed. For all the good that religions and religious fervor can do - I think of Katrina relief - the strings attached to such help can often overwhelm the positives (consider the Spanish Inquisition). We are, in this nation, presently faced with the same oppression that caused our forefathers to flee the lands of their birth, and we are so blind as a population to our own history that we, or at least the majority of us, fail to see it. We have forgotten that the first proscription in the Bill of Rights is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."
There was a reason for that! It makes me sad, it makes me angry, but that frustration spurs me to action. That may be the only good that comes of it.
