On Puritans and Pilgrims

Today we celebrate the bounty of the harvest, and give thanks that a bunch of religious zealots left one theocracy to start their own theocracy, and then the number of theocracies in New England turned out to be ungovernable, so we started a country with no official religion.

Then the religious right took over the Republican Party in 1999...

Still, when the Puritans of Boston could not get along with the Pilgrims of Plymouth in one tiny geographic area, and neither liked the official Church of England or the Catholics or Roger Williams or uppity women, you have to wonder if religious factions might be a good thing for democracy.  If no one religion has a majority, then people are forced to talk to each other on non-religious terms.  At least I'd like to believe this.