Why do some progressive Democrats ignore bigotry and intolerance in religions?

[thucythucy]

35. All of which supports the point I've been making.

Atheism and atheist organizations don't come close to filling the role that congregations often fill--that of the extended family. Most everyone has some reactionary aunt or uncle or sibling or parent they're willing to tolerate as the cost of staying within the family. And while people tend to seek out and stay with religious groups with which they're comfortable, very often a main motivation, sometimes THE main motivation--is social. As I said, folks on the right seem to have understood this--and used it--to far greater advantage than folks on the left.

Add to this is the fact that congregations often provide support and services no other segment of our society--at present anyway--are willing to provide. If you're disabled and/or elderly, and need a ride to a medical appointment, a member of a congregation might be able to call another congregant for help. This is especially true for denominations and congregations that stress the "help the poor, comfort the sick, visit the prisoner, welcome the stranger/refugee" part of whatever text they're using for guidance. In many parts if the country there is NO public transportation, NO options for folks who can't drive or don't own a car. And as you point out in your links, Catholic health groups are now filling the gap--growing wider and wider--left by our insistence on retaining a for-profit health care delivery system. (And it isn't just Catholic hospitals--there are Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, and Jewish hospitals as well). Obama-care was supposed to fill some of that gap--and it has to some extent--but even these efforts are now being sabotaged by Trump.

You asked why people are willing to tolerate the more repressive aspects of religion--particularly Roman Catholic--even if they themselves don't personally subscribe to those beliefs. I've been trying to lay out why this might be so. Then again, considering there are hundreds of millions of Catholics in the world, and more than a billion self-described Christians, I also imagine there are a multitude of personal reasons that all feed into the mix. Theology is only one of them, and very often not the most significant.