“I ask too many difficult questions as a sign of respect” what does it mean?

Question

*She is one of the Brotherhood which settled in Hidden Valley

Q: Are you well respected among other members of the Brotherhood?

A: If you take trying to keep me as far away from Hidden Valley as possible because I ask too many difficult questions as a sign of respect, oh yeah. That's not to say I don't get along with them. I just think they don't know what to do with me sometimes.

First, sorry for the mismatching title, but I really couldn't come up with the short version of what I was curious about. The thing is I don't get it why she assumes he would keep her away from it just because she asks many questions, and what sort of Respect thing has got something to do with asking many questions?

Answer 1

You're misparsing this. as a sign of respect is a complement of take in the construction take X as Y, approximately equivalent to "believe or assume that X is Y".

The woman has been asked if other members of the Brotherhood respect her; she answers ironically that, Yes, they do respect her--if trying to avoid her difficult questions is a sign of respect.