Why we fight

Rod Dreher, a purse-lipped Church Lady from Texas, castigates a woman who wants a slinkily-tailored wedding dress, the slut. Now, Rod has always been a favourite target of Alicublog beatdowns, and it doesn't take long for Roy Edroso to bring teh contempt. But as Roy notes, this is about something much more important than a risible suburban Pecksniff:

Dreher frequently reminds us that Christians don't riot, as some Muslims do, when they perceive their values to be mocked. But he never recalls that for many, many centuries, Christians backed by the power of states harassed, exiled, and burned men and women who didn't conform to their prejudices in comportment or anything else....

It took us nearly two millenia and oceans of blood to reduce these savages to a noisome rump. We can spare a little attention to remember why we did it.

If you aren't reading Roy every day, you need to be.