"As long as they're not harming anyone"
they are harming people by bringing their religious agenda into politics.
look, every religion has its good and its bad. sometimes, the bad is too much to take and you have to leave. there is nothing wrong with that. your faith and love of the lord is all that you need. you dont need to sit with 100 other people in a building every sunday for god to know your love. afterall, he is all knowing. however, you also may not have to leave.
this is like jiu jitsu to me. i love the sport. i love being on the mats. i even love getting my ass kicked. however, i hate 99.9% of the shit surronding the sport. the tournaments are put together at exorbitant fees when they could be run much better for much less (as eveidenced by judo tourneys and wrestling tourneys), the teams demand total loyalty to the point that you shouldnt train with anyone else and if you switch teams, like i have, you are blackballed by everyone, the head of the team is raised to demigod status and shouldnt be questioned, the sport is full of sex offenders, criminals, and scumbags, yet they are revered if they are good at the sport, etc... etc....
however, in the midst of all this crap, i still stay in it cause i have found what i love: the sport. i try to distance myself from all the other shit and take what i can.
i have a friend who was one of the first black belts in the nation, a real pioneer in the sport in america. he is not my friend through jiu jitsu, though; i knew him before i even trained. today, he does not train at all. he will not set foot in an academy, and the sad part is that he actually loves the sport to this day. whenever he is over, he asks me to show him the shit i am learning and he watches dvds and the ufc. the thing is that he cant handle the politics and bullshit he saw. he was around when rorian sued all his brothers for the gracie name. he was severely punished for training with another camp, etc... and now, he misses out on doing what he loves.
the point is that maybe you can find a balance and take the good with the bad. otherwise, you might distance yourself from what you care about to your own detriment.
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