from dictionary.com -

i⋅dol⋅a⋅try

1. the religious worship of idols.

2. excessive or blind adoration, reverence, devotion, etc.

I’m trying to figure out how this is relevant to homosexuality.

But the world does judge all Catholic priests for the mistakes of a few. Because those few couldn’t have done what they did unless they were in a culture of conformity, unquestioning obediance to authority, and institutionalized denial.

Mormons don’t sanction the bad apples. In fact, they give homophobes every reason to believe they are in the majority. It is typical of bigots that they think that everyone in their ethnic/religious/political group thinks the way they do, and that the difference is that they are the ones who have the courage to act. From this delusion comes many forms of terrorism, including gay bashing.

It could be that *she’s* gay, and this would be convenient all around.

On a different tack, having a Jewish father (especially a non-custodial one) doesn’t make you Jewish in the eyes of most Jews. But having Jewish ancestry for some reason makes you a trophy in the eyes of some Mormons. 

Who knows what’s going on in their two little heads.

There was some talk show a few years back where Bill "revealed" that, after the affair came to light, he was sleeping on the couch in their bedroom suite in the White House. The host reacted with the appropriate astonishment - "So … the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, was banished to the couch…?". It was then that I knew Hillary would be running for office.

Telling the coworker that she is inappropriate isn’t going to work. She’s on a mission, not having a conversation, and will just add religious persecution to her rant list. What will work is if everyone gets up and leaves when she starts in on a tirade. It doesn’t have to be all at once - it’s actually more powerful if people just drift away. And if she asks where you’re going, explain that you just don’t want to hear about her pet peeve right now (she asked, so she can’t claim it was a confrontation).

Shunning works wonders.

Franken amendment. Very topical -

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/07/kbr-rape-franken-amendment/?40lbs

I think our host, in an ongoing attempt to inject some class, has this time inadvertantly injected some *class*. But my class (‘84) was still taught to respect its elders (‘59), so I wont’ call her on it.

WRT to semantics, it was simpler in the first blush of the feminist (and all the other) movements. Now, folks are taking back their terminology. Sometimes with charming results (as a friend of mine says, "that’s mister faggot to you"), and sometimes with shocking (I’m not even going to repeat it, since some filter will probably catch it).

The good news is that de-construction is also de-destruction, and acclimation plus liberation can only take away a word’s destructive power. The bad news is that the younger generation is already incapable of really comprehending what all the fuss was about. 

The two words I would have used were "woman" and "lady". 

Often confused: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/sojtruth-woman.html

Then there is "man" and "human being". 

Also often confused.  (“There are two types of people in this world, human beings and women. And when women start trying to act like human beings, they are accused of trying to be men.” —Simone de Beauvoir)

Betty Friedan’s solution to gender equality was to give women domestic servants so they could go back to school (thereby transforming her book from "revolutionary" to "comedy"). But the seamstresses and nannies and nurses weren’t going to have the time and energy to work for women’s rights, or the visibility to change people’s mindsets, while the female doctors and lawyers and CEOs were. Think of it as trickle-down feminism.

OTOH, I’m reminded of MLK’s comment (paraphrased) - White men don’t want black men  sleeping with their daughters. But we’ve been sleeping with their daughters for generations … it’s their *wives* daughters that are the issue.

How remarkably things have changed. Perhaps most strikingly underscored by the opening paragraph - "Anyway, at a women’s college, the old beaux would only be there if they had married one’s classmates."

(of course, at Wellesley, "casenova" meant something else entirely)

Yogurt is pre-digested - the lactobacillus bacteria eat the lactose and poop lactic acid (which is why it tastes so sour). Not sure if they also break down casein.

Yogurt was the only milk product (besides ghee) that I was willing to eat in India. There’s a lovely organic sour cream called "Nancys" that also uses lactobacillus. I have no trouble digesting that - it might work for you.

I make south-indian style food with coconut oil (and also use it for thai food, instead of peanut). For spicy dishes this works, but for more mild/savory ones I still use ghee (hubby is milk-sensitive, but has no problem with ghee). It definitely sounds like you have a casein allergy. 

Glad to be of help. Indian food actually has a lot of dairy - north india uses ghee (clarified butter) as its primary cooking fat. However, it’s got all the solids taken out of it, so might not set off your allergy. 

I had an almost-fatal reaction to sulfa, which an idiot doctor gave me even though she knew I was allergic to penicillin. That’s when I started carrying the epi-pen.