If you say a church or other religious group must not have more status or political clout than a NGO or trade union or whatever organisations participate in the political sphere and roughly represent as many people, that's perfectly okay with me (and anything else would be religious privilege).

HOORAY!! Did it really hurt to spit it out? We could have saved a couple of days' unconstructive invective.

Any idea why it is a tad difficult for me to reply dispassionately to all this?

Because people get emotive about religion?

OK, I'm being flippant, but the use of reductio ad absurdam, as in Jake's example, is a valid rhetorical technique, and it's really a shame you take it so personally.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}