I've been thinking about this today and, for the benefit of some of the newer folks, I ought to take this opportunity to expand/explain my policy of keeping controversial topics off the forum (or trying to). This is something that has been a bedrock policy, along with keeping things clean and in good taste and not engaging in personal attacks, since the forum started in 2000.
The difficulty (for me at least) is that sometimes it's really a judgment call as to what constitutes a "controversial topic." Things that I might consider controversial topics may not be seen as such by others, and that's understandable. Conversely, there have been instances where someone posted a topic that I thought was perfectly fine, but which someone else didn't. Not too long ago such a topic was posted that I saw nothing wrong with. I was looking at it with my own set of biases, of course. But when someone PMd me with their concerns about that thread, I had to concede that, even though I might have agreed with everything in the thread, I saw their point of view also and deleted that topic. I try to be fair in that regard, although I am human (I know, it's hard to believe) and as prone to bad calls as anyone.
I have a lot of very strong opinions on a number of topics myself, but I make a conscious effort not to use my forum to enlighten you all with my opinions on things like politics, religion, the economy, or similar hot-button topics. Those who have been here a while probably have a good idea where my ideology lies, but I really do try hard not to be too obvious about it or shove my beliefs down your throats (even though it would do you a tremendous amount of good.

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The reality is, very few posts or topics get deleted here, but in those rare occasions when one does get removed, please don't take it personally. I've toyed with the idea of relaxing the rules regarding debating controversial topics, but I kind of feel that for the most part, things have run pretty smoothly as is, so "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" seems to apply.