"Religious bigotry" is an overused term.

[SeattleUte]

Actually, I seldom see the term "religious bigotry" used except among Mormons (whose skin I have seen grow thinner in my lifetime). When you think about it, billing yourself as the only true faith, and agressively proseletyzing your creed to adherants of competing faiths as well as agnostics and aetheists--threatening them with at least a form of eternal damnation if they don't embrace your faith--could itself be called a form of religious bigotry. Indeed, the chauvenistic outlook and claim to superior moral authority is why religion since the Enlightenment has attracted such heated criticism and indeed ridicule. It comes with the territory of being a "major religion," to which I assume the LDS faith aspires.

Listen up, it's not necessarily "religious bigotry" to poke fun at or critique religion. We all instinctively know this when the object of the criticism or fun making isn't our own faith. Most Westerners defended that Danish rag's right to ridicule Mohammed. Blues Brothers' ridicule of a nun's habit was hilarious. But Andrew Sullivan's mild fun poking at and critiquing of Mormonism and "garments" is most amphatically offensive, beyond the pale. Why? Near as I can tell because those offended regard Joseph Smith as a true prophet and Mohammed and the Popes as false ones. (See, e.g., Rocky's inevitable response to this post.) Well, tell that to Andrew Sullivan; I'm sure it will chasten him.