I really struggled about whether or not to respond here, so here we go:
If religion didn't wield political power, I wouldn't care as much about it. I have a grandson due in October, and I would like that boy to grow up in a country where the most intelligent and most honest among us have a chance of serving in Congress, or maybe even as President. Right now, any candidate had *better* claim belief in deity. There is no other way in.
We all watched the pope tell Americans how to vote in 2004, and we watched the results - the Catholic vote went Republican (anybody remember the "wafer watch" around Kerry?). I just cannot think that an institution - which abhors the use of condoms for AIDS prevention and considers use of any form of birth control by anyone to be a mortal sin - is anything but evil in world where 50,000 children starve to death every day and another 5,500 people die of AIDS.
Again, it's not the people (I wonder sometimes if many practicing Catholics have much of a clue about their religion), but the institution continues to be destructive.