Bent food in houses of worship

Oh man. Oh man. Oh man. I just had a truly brilliant post written out, and for whatever reason, it disappeared into the ether. That is quite annoying. Another thing that is annoying is that I haven't gotten a single email in over ten hours. Holy smokes folks, I feel as if I've been cut off from the rest of humanity or something like that. But don't worry, I'll get over it.
Rabbi Manis Friedman, fellow Minnesotan and bargaining chip of the '87 world series, farbrenged for the bochurim of tiferes bochurim here in Morristown this past shabbos. For various reasons I was unable to attend, but it sounds like a fun time was had by all. He focused mainly on a diatribe against liberals, as the old saying goes, "There are two types of people in this world: thinking people, and liberals." So the great Rabbi bashed all the liberals in the world, including, I was surprised to find out, homosexuals. I'm not surprised that he bashed them-after all, he is an orthodox rabbinical leader, but I am surprised that he chose to do so in this particular forum. After all, we're talking about the delicate ears of the students of tiferes. Be that as it may, or as it may be, the fact remains that the rabbi reportedly said, "The problem with gays is not that they like men, but rather that they don't like women." Now, far be it from me to argue, so I won't. I mean, what exactly am I supposed to say? I once had this argument with my chavrusa here in Motown. He brought a sicha, which he wanted to use to prove me wrong, but I defended his deathblow by pointing out that a careful reading of the text in fact supported my thesis, that homosexuality is in fact genetic. Score one for me! Or several thousand, if you must. But I digress.
So yeah, I couldn't very well argue with the great rabbi, particularly as I wasn't there, but I would have liked to. It's not that I'm really a liberal or a conservative, though in thinking I tend to fall into the former category and in voting into the latter, but rather I'm a contrarian.
For example, the reason I wasn't into beautiful (ha!) New Jersey was because I was in fact on beautiful Long Island spending a splendid shabbos far from the comforts of mikve and donut shop. Anyway, at the chabad house I was at the congregants were naturally waxing eloquently about the recent horrors in Mumbai; in particular, there was one older Israeli who loquaciously called for the immediate slaughter of whoever it was that was responsible for the terrorism. Now, I'm just as much for retributive genocide as the next Zionist, but my soul did revolt when not a single person in the room disagreed with his prescription for revengeful death. "Where has the old spirit of liberal Long Island gone?!" I cried, leaping onto one of the white folding tables, splattering chumus all over the shliach's kapote and crying out, "Whoso is for the lord, follow me! Allah Aqbar, and death to the infidel Jews!"
All right, I didn't actually say that, though you can sure bet I would have liked to. Unfortunately, as a representative of the chabad lubavitch worldwide movement, under the auspices of Merkos Linyonei Chinuch, I am prevented from making such statements. Tragic, I know.
So instead I was forced to repress my instincts and had to smile politely and pretend that I wasn't revolted by the proceedings unfolding before mine eyes. Of course, if I was by a kiddush in some mosque in Santa Fe, then I would certainly make sure to uphold the honor of my people, probably with the help of a submachine gun or something. But yeah, I'm unlikely to ever find myself in that particular situation. I mean, do mosques even have kiddushes? If they don't then they can kiss this particular convert goodbye.