Tradition. Ah, yes. Custom. And common practice. Courtesy. In Internet conversations they require that you italicize the text you are quoting from the post you are responding to. Any disagreements?
A disease has caught Free Republic. It’s been brought here a couple of months ago by a self-styled theology expert who defies this custom, as she defies his Whore of Babylon, and quotes without italicizing, and instead just underlining the quoted text, making it appears as his own. Which may be just as well, as he seems to argue with himself. And I am to trust an interpreter of the Holy Scripture interpreting the very Holy Scripture when he is unable or unwilling to learn two (count them: 2) HTML tags? Gag me with a spoon!
If you are imitating him, and I know some do, STOP!