I never realized how fragile America is. It’s frightening to contemplate.

Religious right figures Jim Garlow and Harry Jackson, at the Pulpit Freedom Conference, claimed that “the tax code muzzles pastors and will lead to the downfall of America.”

End Times broadcaster Jan Markell is warning Minnesota is about “to experience divine punishment over the state’s marriage equality law.” She told the American Family Association’s news service that “gay people and Muslims have turned Minnesota into the occult capital of America,” noting that “God destroyed cities in the Bible over homosexuality.”

“Thus homosexuality often becomes the barometer of a culture rotting out from the inside,” said Ed Vitagliano in the American Family Association Magazine last month.

David Lane wrote in World Net Daily, “Whether the mobilization of pastors and pews to save the nation goes against the grain of the pagan, liberal media elite is not relevant. America’s survival is at stake, and this is not tall talk or exaggeration.”

Debate is healthy. An exchange of opinions and ideas is a right, never to be questioned in the US, as is freedom of and from religion.

But there are limits. And here’s mine:

David Barton issued a pronouncement that Christians cannot drink Starbucks coffee because the company supports marriage equality. “Biblically, there is no way a Christian can help support what is attacking God,” Barton said, adding, “I’m sorry, you’ve got to find some other coffee to drink. You can’t drink Starbucks and be biblically right on this thing.”

Now if you really want to see the USA crash and burn — take away its Starbucks!! It won’t be a pretty picture.

Maggie Ricker

Chelsea