Of course I'm one of the ones who loves to talk about religion/politics

Me too, but like you I never really considered them flames... More like heated debates which really, for me, help my understanding of "the other side". I do tend to get fired up about politics these days, which is odd, up until just recently I was always bored out of my skull when talking politics.

One note related to this particular discussion, Al Franken is kind of freak, doesn't define the democratic party as a whole.

I just mean that historically, when a "group" is out of power, they tend to spend more of they time being upset about it (as conservatives did during Clinton's stay).

Agreed, however not always the case, I'm still agitated at the democrats for not dragging Bush's drug history, DUI's, and all the other dirt that was readily available to them. In fact I've never understood why that stuff was never really even a big deal.