is Rick Santorum more or less objectionable because he is a Roman Catholic?

[TJ in Oregon]

Interestingly, Sarah Palin is also an ex-Catholic. No one cared and hardly anyone knew.

[TJ in Oregon]

BRTD, since you are so adamantly against Catholics being baptized into the church without choosing to, what about this:

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[TJ in Oregon]

He's speaking to the Disciples there, and infant baptism is not found anywhere in the Bible.

He's still saying they didn't choose to follow him and pretty much everything about your whole view on this is about choosing what you want to follow.

[TJ in Oregon]

The context is quite a bit different. Do you support the Bharatiya Janata Party in India's proposals to ban religious conversion?

For starters they're wrong about the whole Jesus thing But the other obvious difference here they're advocating government action to prevent people from converting, a major departure from believing on a personal level that someone can convert.

One reason why the Church isn't going to throw out all their records is that we don't believe in rebaptism and if they've already been baptized and would some day rejoin (which happens sometimes) they couldn't be baptized again.

And BRTD why do you care so much whether they call themselves Catholic? I could call myself a tulip but it doesn't make it true. Who cares? It's not like Catholicism holds that all one must do to attain salvation is be baptized. There is something called sin.

[TJ in Oregon]

The Catholic church is the largest denomination in America yet still is the only one with clergy shortage issues.

We have standards.

[TJ in Oregon]

BRTD I think you're on to something with the German ancestry idea. Being German American is a bit different than being Italian American or Irish American or Lithuanian American in that those groups have a large number of ethnic customs that were maintained over the years that really define them whereas being German American isn't much different than being American period. For instance if you go to Cleveland and ask where the Italian ethnic neighborhoods (Little Italy,Gordon Square) or Polish ethnic neighborhoods (Slavic Village, Parma) or Irish ethnic neighborhoods (West Park) are, you'll be able to find them. There is no German ethnic neighborhood and hasn't been one since about 1850.