9 ms·

Born and raised in the midwest here, and the article has done well to cherry-pick a relatively liberal spot in an otherwise conservative state. The same could

Born and raised in the midwest here, and the article has done well to cherry-pick a relatively liberal spot in an otherwise conservative state. The same could be said of the Carolinas and the infamous research triangle park. I left the midwest for the west coast because of the culture, full stop. I was tired of my state representatives writing my sexual preference off as a disorder. I was angry when the state decided a pharmacist could refuse to sell me birth control and I hated the legislative decree that tried to exert control over what gender got to use the bathroom or not. In short, I did not want to live in a state where the legislature had nothing better to do than fight the culture war to win votes for the next election. Yeah, I cant buy a house in san jose, but at least I dont have to worry about the ten commandments showing up at the DMV in stone or some toothless anti-shariah legislation burning through my tax dollars. Drive 15 miles outside Columbus and it doesnt matter how many VC firm employees you have in the city, the bible thumpers win this state by a landslide of gerrymandering and arent ashamed to force their backwoods culture on you from the hinterlands. The midwests relationship with silicon valley terminates at the facebook, google, and twitter HTTP connection for a damn good reason.

013a 9y ago
> Yeah, I cant buy a house in san jose, but at least I dont have to worry about the ten commandments showing up at the DMV in stone This is such a strange priority to have. Do you even hear yourself? If you want to talk about culture war, we can talk about supporting illegal immigration against Federal law, or about downgrading knowingly transmitting HIV to sexual partners from a felony. Ultimately, everyone has different cultures. No one requires you to respect other peoples' culture, but your blatant ignorance of what actually happens in the midwest shows that you don't even care enough to learn about it.
- sidlls 9y ago
  I come from the Midwest. Nothing the GP described is inaccurate. It's not a strange priority to want to live some place that society doesn't try to enforce rules from a 2000 year old religious text.
  - mcny 9y ago
    Should we all move to the midwest? Maybe we have a chance at changing things for the better? Wishful thinking?
  - Digory 9y ago
    There's a little hyperbole there. Religious folk like the decalogue near courthouses (but generally lose lawsuits about those); they don't think Moses received the rules of the road in stone. And I can't imagine anti-sharia laws "burning through tax dollars" any faster than other window-dressing-type bills in liberal legislatures. Red and Blue legislators gonna bloviate and introduce useless bills, but no one "funds" them. But, it does seem striking to say you can't live in even the watered-down religious culture of the Midwest (which is no deep South). Like, Lake Wobegone Lutherans are too much anymore. I won't gainsay that either way, but recognize you're no longer talking about tech as a search for profit or talent, but an aspirational social structure.
  - 013a 9y ago
    It wasn't inaccurate 10 years ago. I get the feeling the OP hasn't lived in the midwest for quite some time. Generally, no one cares. Yes, there are still some bad laws in place, and there are some assholes, and you'll get old farts who want the commandments in front of courthouses. But predominately, no one cares. Live and let live. Going to grandstand for a second: For some reason people have this sense that if you don't support something, you must hate it. There's no middleground in left-leaning politics. I'm not gay. Frankly, I seriously cannot put into words how little I care about your sexual orientation. So, that surfaces in the fact that I'm not out at LGBT rallies supporting new laws. That's called "live and let live". This idea that everyone has to stand on some side of an issue is pervasive in our culture, I believe fueled in-part by machines like Facebook for engagement and likes. Its impossible to give a fuck about everything; I let the people who actually give a fuck fight those battles, and I'll fight my battles.
    - lurr 9y ago
      > That's called "live and let live". Not when you vote in people who will push for laws that discriminate.
- rconti 9y ago
  Owning property is a luxury, one which may not even pay off in the long run. It seems totally reasonable to prioritize being treated like a human being over an arbitrary exchange of assets.
  - lr4444lr 9y ago
    Owning property is the exercise of a fundamental American right. It has nothing to do with cost. Try telling a rural Alabama homeowner how "luxurious" a life he leads over a market-rate renter in Union Square NYC, where the rent would easily be 3X the total mortgage + tax + insurance of the former.
    - rconti 9y ago
      Ok, then the parent has the right to buy land in San Jose, so there's nothing wrong here.
- lurr 9y ago
  > but your blatant ignorance of what actually happens in the midwest you missed quoting the part where the OP mentions moving from the Midwest. I don't think freedom of religion (including freedom from religion) is a strange priority. Nor is wanting to get away from legislation that discriminates against you.
  - 013a 9y ago
    Everyone with an opinion lived there "sometime ago". No one lives there now. Because those of us who do have little to complain about. Weird.
    - SauciestGNU 9y ago
      I live there now. I get called homophobic slurs while riding my bike to work. I get coal rolled. People swerve at me in their trucks attempting to assault me. And I live in a university city. For what it's worth I am not gay, I just have the audacity to not always drive my car. And then there are the culture warriors in the state legislature, doing things like prohibiting municipalities from passing their own non-discrimination ordinances that include gender and sexuality. And then there are the confederate battle flags plastering trucks and houses all over the rural areas that surround my city in this very northern state. And the wildly increased incidences of bias crimes. No, I think there are plenty of issues that currently affect the Midwest, and while it may have certain redeeming aspects, we're not doing the region any favors by glossing over the ugliness.
      - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
        > I get coal rolled. Could you define that term for me?
        justin66 9y ago
        http://lmgtfy.com/?q=coal+roll http://lmgtfy.com/?q=coal+roll
        grzm 9y ago
Apocryphon 9y ago
Sure, but there are plenty of places like that in California as well. Drive a couple hours north of SF or east of Contra Costa or south of LA and you run into similar cultures. CA is the state that created Reagan, after all. San Diego might be the most conservative big city in the nation, albeit in a different type of conservatism. The Midwest might be generally more conservative, but tech companies are going to started in cities like Columbus, not the rural area.
entee 9y ago
I think a whole lot of the divide we see is not state/region based but city vs. rural. See how many quite conservative congresspeople CA sends to the house, many of which just voted on a bill that will increase taxes on many Californians, especially those who live in the big cities. The bay area sprawls out pretty far but drive into the Sierras or up north and it's a different story. Trump won Placer county (aka area around Lake Tahoe) by 51-39%. Further north, he won Lassen county 70-20%. This in a state where Hillary won and the legislature is roughly 2/3rds Democrat. I see no reason the cities in the midwest couldn't host a tech boom, and over time start to turn the cultural tide as a result. More globally, this divide makes me sad. I have trouble thinking these people who hold views I find quite wrong are bad people, but it seems somewhere our national conversation has broken down completely. Sometimes maybe for good reasons, but still it's quite depressing. Edit: typo
- lurr 9y ago
  > I have trouble thinking these people who hold views I find quite wrong are bad people Even when we are talking about people who support stomping on the rights of others because of something as private as sexual orientation?
  - Helmet 9y ago
    You do realize that massive swaths of the population in virtually every single country in the world are not accepting of homosexuality (1)? Are all of these people "bad"? Of course not. There is simply a cultural disconnect, and some ideas die hard. (1) http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/04/the-global-divide-on-homosexuality/ http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/04/the-global-divide-on-hom...
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Are all of these people "bad"? In that one respect, yes. > There is simply a cultural disconnect Yes, much like there was once a “cultural disconnect” over whether human beings could legitimately be treated as property rather than persons.
stcredzero 9y ago
the article has done well to cherry-pick a relatively liberal spot in an otherwise conservative state Aren't those called "cities?" arent ashamed to force their backwoods culture on you from the hinterlands I lived in Cincinnati Ohio for 5 years. How did people force their backwoods culture on you? I had zero culture forced upon me. I was the subject of a targeted racial harassment once, and I remember one unpleasant discussion with a cringe-inducing person once. Most people there in the late 90's/early 2000's were fairly live and let live. Where they weren't, aside from the above, much of this came from the Left, as an instance of the left eating itself.
- ryguytilidie 9y ago
  "How did people force their backwoods culture on you?" I'm not the OP, but this seemed pretty clear: "I was tired of my state representatives writing my sexual preference off as a disorder. I was angry when the state decided a pharmacist could refuse to sell me birth control and I hated the legislative decree that tried to exert control over what gender got to use the bathroom or not. In short, I did not want to live in a state where the legislature had nothing better to do than fight the culture war to win votes for the next election. Yeah, I cant buy a house in san jose, but at least I dont have to worry about the ten commandments showing up at the DMV in stone or some toothless anti-shariah legislation burning through my tax dollars."
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    I'm not the OP, but this seemed pretty clear: And from that, I take it that nothing ever happened to him in-person. Did another person do something to him in particular? I think that says a lot more about culture than news/politics issues. From that standpoint, my life here in the Bay Area scores a lot lower than my life in Houston or Cincinnati.
    - ryguytilidie 9y ago
      First you ask what the person is even upset about, when they made it very clear in the very post you were replying to. Then, when I point this pretty obvious thing out, you change the standard to "nothing ever happened to him, in person". What? A) Things did happen to him. Being denied birth control is a thing that happened to him and his partners. I don't really understand the "in person" qualifier you tacked on. Are you implying people in the Bay Area are "doing something to you in particular that happened to you in person?" Any examples? B) "I think that says a lot more about culture than news/politics issues. From that standpoint, my life here in the Bay Area scores a lot lower than my life in Houston or Cincinnati." I'm not sure I follow here? The OP was talking about a situation where they lived outside the bay area and left that other place because they felt picked on and are feeling more comfortable in the bay area. You've decided that this is "about culture", and then immediately jump to "this is why Houston is better than the Bay Area", which makes no sense whatsoever.
gcburn2 9y ago
As someone who grew up in Columbus, went to school in Cincinnati, and moved back to Columbus for work, I think you're being a little dramatic here. I don't know where you're from in the Midwest, but the vast majority of people I interact with around here are extremely live-and-let-live. In fact I can't remember the last time I came across someone or a situation that was actively hostile about beliefs or sexual orientation. Obviously these are just my anecdotes, but I run in a pretty sexually and racially diverse scene and they all love Columbus as well. Your hyperbole and vindictive reactions to a diverse region of the country are certainly going to help close the divide.
- lurr 9y ago
  Then how is this legislation getting passed?
  - Para2016 9y ago
    Motivation to get out and vote, probably. Remember Proposition 8 in California? A Democrat just won in Alabama. It's about motivation for voting. The research triangle in NC is the most heavily populated area in NC, it should carry the state with 1/5 of the state's people living there and actually voting.
- rybosome 9y ago
  Columbus native here. It varies wildly; my wife lived in an upper-class suburban area and reports an experience similar to yours, but I grew up in a poorer, slightly more rural-adjacent area. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I was called a “faggot” for things like wanting to recycle or not wanting to get in fistfights. I overheard racial epithets on a near-daily basis; telling racist jokes where the punchline was the death or maiming of a minority were widely socially acceptable. Culture is the #1 reason that I have no desire to move back to Columbus.
  - muninn_ 9y ago
    Interesting. I love the culture there. Great events and really nice people. It's too bad that you had a bad experience in a rural area outside of the suburbs and because of that you believe it reflects poorly on the city.
Helmet 9y ago
>In short, I did not want to live in a state where the legislature had nothing better to do than fight the culture war to win votes for the next election. California doesn't fight the culture war? California is the primary exporter of the left-wing culture. It just happens to conform to your political leanings, so you like it there. And THAT'S OKAY, I'm not saying you are wrong, you're just now on the side that you agree with. >Yeah, I cant buy a house in san jose Who cares about home ownership when you can use whatever public toilet you want!
- lurr 9y ago
  Who care about owning a house when you can't marry the person you want to live in it with. When you can't fill it with the kids you both want. When you can't sleep together.
  - tomjen3 9y ago
    Anti-gay sex laws were judged unconstitutional in '03 (yes shockingly late). You can have sex with whomever you want, above the age of consent.
    - lurr 9y ago
      The point isn't what the law is, the point is what some people would have it be.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  California isn't denying people fundamental rights. That's the difference. "Who cares about home ownership when you can use whatever public toilet you want!" You mean they're allowed to exist in public? If you are not allowed to use the bathroom that corresponds to your identity, you're basically not allowed to use the bathroom in public at all. Which means you're not really allowed to be in public at all.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    You know, a couple weeks ago, I was reading a link (from HN, IIRC) about liberal (really!) feminists who didn't want to share a public bathroom with someone who was genetically male but self-described as female. They viewed it as males defining what female is. The article went on to describe how feminists who hold such views have been subject to literal physical attack by others on the left. I'm pretty sure I can paint something in that as "denying people fundamental rights"...
rajbot 9y ago
I was raised in the rural midwest and moved to San Francisco for the same reasons as you. It is shocking how much religious extremism, homophobia, and racism exist in the midwest. Growing up in the midwest, kids and adults alike would come up us and tell us we were going to hell, or to go back to where we came from, or call us racial slurs like "sandnigger". Grown adults had no problem harassing little kids at school or the playground. People shot our windows a few times. Racism is so widespread in Missouri that the NAACP has issued a travel advisory and warned minorities to not travel there. Earlier this year a Garmin engineer was murdered in Kansas by a racist who walked into a bar and shot two Indians. There is no way I would raise my children in the midwest.
- DuskStar 9y ago
  >Missouri >Kansas We have very different ideas of what states qualify as the midwest.
  - rajbot 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States
    - DuskStar 9y ago
      Huh. To me, being from Michigan, those are both the south.
      - muninn_ 9y ago
        Yeah, the "Midwest" is a stupid term. Great Lakes region is where Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc. call home. I don't think there's much in common with somebody who is from Nebraska or Kansas anymore than I think somebody in rural California or some random place in Arizona has much in common with people from the Great Lakes region.
lr4444lr 9y ago
"I did not want to live in a state where the legislature had nothing better to do than fight the culture war to win votes for the next election" Funny, I know plenty of people who want to leave east coast cities for the exact same reason with the political poles switched.
ams6110 9y ago
Glad to infer you learned not to stereotype. /s
justin66 9y ago
> the bible thumpers win this state by a landslide of gerrymandering Not by a landslide. There's a reason it's called a "swing state." (and, regrettably, it's not because the kids dress up and go dancing...) > The midwests relationship with silicon valley terminates at the facebook, google, and twitter HTTP connection for a damn good reason. Let's be honest, that is a pretty closed-minded thing to say.

013a 9y ago

> Yeah, I cant buy a house in san jose, but at least I dont have to worry about the ten commandments showing up at the DMV in stone This is such a strange priority to have. Do you even hear yourself? If you want to talk about culture war, we can talk about supporting illegal immigration against Federal law, or about downgrading knowingly transmitting HIV to sexual partners from a felony. Ultimately, everyone has different cultures. No one requires you to respect other peoples' culture, but your blatant ignorance of what actually happens in the midwest shows that you don't even care enough to learn about it.

sidlls 9y ago
I come from the Midwest. Nothing the GP described is inaccurate. It's not a strange priority to want to live some place that society doesn't try to enforce rules from a 2000 year old religious text.
- mcny 9y ago
  Should we all move to the midwest? Maybe we have a chance at changing things for the better? Wishful thinking?
- Digory 9y ago
  There's a little hyperbole there. Religious folk like the decalogue near courthouses (but generally lose lawsuits about those); they don't think Moses received the rules of the road in stone. And I can't imagine anti-sharia laws "burning through tax dollars" any faster than other window-dressing-type bills in liberal legislatures. Red and Blue legislators gonna bloviate and introduce useless bills, but no one "funds" them. But, it does seem striking to say you can't live in even the watered-down religious culture of the Midwest (which is no deep South). Like, Lake Wobegone Lutherans are too much anymore. I won't gainsay that either way, but recognize you're no longer talking about tech as a search for profit or talent, but an aspirational social structure.
- 013a 9y ago
  It wasn't inaccurate 10 years ago. I get the feeling the OP hasn't lived in the midwest for quite some time. Generally, no one cares. Yes, there are still some bad laws in place, and there are some assholes, and you'll get old farts who want the commandments in front of courthouses. But predominately, no one cares. Live and let live. Going to grandstand for a second: For some reason people have this sense that if you don't support something, you must hate it. There's no middleground in left-leaning politics. I'm not gay. Frankly, I seriously cannot put into words how little I care about your sexual orientation. So, that surfaces in the fact that I'm not out at LGBT rallies supporting new laws. That's called "live and let live". This idea that everyone has to stand on some side of an issue is pervasive in our culture, I believe fueled in-part by machines like Facebook for engagement and likes. Its impossible to give a fuck about everything; I let the people who actually give a fuck fight those battles, and I'll fight my battles.
  - lurr 9y ago
    > That's called "live and let live". Not when you vote in people who will push for laws that discriminate.
rconti 9y ago
Owning property is a luxury, one which may not even pay off in the long run. It seems totally reasonable to prioritize being treated like a human being over an arbitrary exchange of assets.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  Owning property is the exercise of a fundamental American right. It has nothing to do with cost. Try telling a rural Alabama homeowner how "luxurious" a life he leads over a market-rate renter in Union Square NYC, where the rent would easily be 3X the total mortgage + tax + insurance of the former.
  - rconti 9y ago
    Ok, then the parent has the right to buy land in San Jose, so there's nothing wrong here.
lurr 9y ago
> but your blatant ignorance of what actually happens in the midwest you missed quoting the part where the OP mentions moving from the Midwest. I don't think freedom of religion (including freedom from religion) is a strange priority. Nor is wanting to get away from legislation that discriminates against you.
- 013a 9y ago
  Everyone with an opinion lived there "sometime ago". No one lives there now. Because those of us who do have little to complain about. Weird.
  - SauciestGNU 9y ago
    I live there now. I get called homophobic slurs while riding my bike to work. I get coal rolled. People swerve at me in their trucks attempting to assault me. And I live in a university city. For what it's worth I am not gay, I just have the audacity to not always drive my car. And then there are the culture warriors in the state legislature, doing things like prohibiting municipalities from passing their own non-discrimination ordinances that include gender and sexuality. And then there are the confederate battle flags plastering trucks and houses all over the rural areas that surround my city in this very northern state. And the wildly increased incidences of bias crimes. No, I think there are plenty of issues that currently affect the Midwest, and while it may have certain redeeming aspects, we're not doing the region any favors by glossing over the ugliness.
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      > I get coal rolled. Could you define that term for me?
      - justin66 9y ago
        http://lmgtfy.com/?q=coal+roll http://lmgtfy.com/?q=coal+roll
      - grzm 9y ago

Apocryphon 9y ago

Sure, but there are plenty of places like that in California as well. Drive a couple hours north of SF or east of Contra Costa or south of LA and you run into similar cultures. CA is the state that created Reagan, after all. San Diego might be the most conservative big city in the nation, albeit in a different type of conservatism. The Midwest might be generally more conservative, but tech companies are going to started in cities like Columbus, not the rural area.

entee 9y ago

I think a whole lot of the divide we see is not state/region based but city vs. rural. See how many quite conservative congresspeople CA sends to the house, many of which just voted on a bill that will increase taxes on many Californians, especially those who live in the big cities. The bay area sprawls out pretty far but drive into the Sierras or up north and it's a different story. Trump won Placer county (aka area around Lake Tahoe) by 51-39%. Further north, he won Lassen county 70-20%. This in a state where Hillary won and the legislature is roughly 2/3rds Democrat. I see no reason the cities in the midwest couldn't host a tech boom, and over time start to turn the cultural tide as a result. More globally, this divide makes me sad. I have trouble thinking these people who hold views I find quite wrong are bad people, but it seems somewhere our national conversation has broken down completely. Sometimes maybe for good reasons, but still it's quite depressing. Edit: typo

lurr 9y ago
> I have trouble thinking these people who hold views I find quite wrong are bad people Even when we are talking about people who support stomping on the rights of others because of something as private as sexual orientation?
- Helmet 9y ago
  You do realize that massive swaths of the population in virtually every single country in the world are not accepting of homosexuality (1)? Are all of these people "bad"? Of course not. There is simply a cultural disconnect, and some ideas die hard. (1) http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/04/the-global-divide-on-homosexuality/ http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/04/the-global-divide-on-hom...
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Are all of these people "bad"? In that one respect, yes. > There is simply a cultural disconnect Yes, much like there was once a “cultural disconnect” over whether human beings could legitimately be treated as property rather than persons.

stcredzero 9y ago

the article has done well to cherry-pick a relatively liberal spot in an otherwise conservative state Aren't those called "cities?" arent ashamed to force their backwoods culture on you from the hinterlands I lived in Cincinnati Ohio for 5 years. How did people force their backwoods culture on you? I had zero culture forced upon me. I was the subject of a targeted racial harassment once, and I remember one unpleasant discussion with a cringe-inducing person once. Most people there in the late 90's/early 2000's were fairly live and let live. Where they weren't, aside from the above, much of this came from the Left, as an instance of the left eating itself.

ryguytilidie 9y ago
"How did people force their backwoods culture on you?" I'm not the OP, but this seemed pretty clear: "I was tired of my state representatives writing my sexual preference off as a disorder. I was angry when the state decided a pharmacist could refuse to sell me birth control and I hated the legislative decree that tried to exert control over what gender got to use the bathroom or not. In short, I did not want to live in a state where the legislature had nothing better to do than fight the culture war to win votes for the next election. Yeah, I cant buy a house in san jose, but at least I dont have to worry about the ten commandments showing up at the DMV in stone or some toothless anti-shariah legislation burning through my tax dollars."
- stcredzero 9y ago
  I'm not the OP, but this seemed pretty clear: And from that, I take it that nothing ever happened to him in-person. Did another person do something to him in particular? I think that says a lot more about culture than news/politics issues. From that standpoint, my life here in the Bay Area scores a lot lower than my life in Houston or Cincinnati.
  - ryguytilidie 9y ago
    First you ask what the person is even upset about, when they made it very clear in the very post you were replying to. Then, when I point this pretty obvious thing out, you change the standard to "nothing ever happened to him, in person". What? A) Things did happen to him. Being denied birth control is a thing that happened to him and his partners. I don't really understand the "in person" qualifier you tacked on. Are you implying people in the Bay Area are "doing something to you in particular that happened to you in person?" Any examples? B) "I think that says a lot more about culture than news/politics issues. From that standpoint, my life here in the Bay Area scores a lot lower than my life in Houston or Cincinnati." I'm not sure I follow here? The OP was talking about a situation where they lived outside the bay area and left that other place because they felt picked on and are feeling more comfortable in the bay area. You've decided that this is "about culture", and then immediately jump to "this is why Houston is better than the Bay Area", which makes no sense whatsoever.

gcburn2 9y ago

As someone who grew up in Columbus, went to school in Cincinnati, and moved back to Columbus for work, I think you're being a little dramatic here. I don't know where you're from in the Midwest, but the vast majority of people I interact with around here are extremely live-and-let-live. In fact I can't remember the last time I came across someone or a situation that was actively hostile about beliefs or sexual orientation. Obviously these are just my anecdotes, but I run in a pretty sexually and racially diverse scene and they all love Columbus as well. Your hyperbole and vindictive reactions to a diverse region of the country are certainly going to help close the divide.

lurr 9y ago
Then how is this legislation getting passed?
- Para2016 9y ago
  Motivation to get out and vote, probably. Remember Proposition 8 in California? A Democrat just won in Alabama. It's about motivation for voting. The research triangle in NC is the most heavily populated area in NC, it should carry the state with 1/5 of the state's people living there and actually voting.
rybosome 9y ago
Columbus native here. It varies wildly; my wife lived in an upper-class suburban area and reports an experience similar to yours, but I grew up in a poorer, slightly more rural-adjacent area. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I was called a “faggot” for things like wanting to recycle or not wanting to get in fistfights. I overheard racial epithets on a near-daily basis; telling racist jokes where the punchline was the death or maiming of a minority were widely socially acceptable. Culture is the #1 reason that I have no desire to move back to Columbus.
- muninn_ 9y ago
  Interesting. I love the culture there. Great events and really nice people. It's too bad that you had a bad experience in a rural area outside of the suburbs and because of that you believe it reflects poorly on the city.

Helmet 9y ago

>In short, I did not want to live in a state where the legislature had nothing better to do than fight the culture war to win votes for the next election. California doesn't fight the culture war? California is the primary exporter of the left-wing culture. It just happens to conform to your political leanings, so you like it there. And THAT'S OKAY, I'm not saying you are wrong, you're just now on the side that you agree with. >Yeah, I cant buy a house in san jose Who cares about home ownership when you can use whatever public toilet you want!

lurr 9y ago
Who care about owning a house when you can't marry the person you want to live in it with. When you can't fill it with the kids you both want. When you can't sleep together.
- tomjen3 9y ago
  Anti-gay sex laws were judged unconstitutional in '03 (yes shockingly late). You can have sex with whomever you want, above the age of consent.
  - lurr 9y ago
    The point isn't what the law is, the point is what some people would have it be.
s73ver_ 9y ago
California isn't denying people fundamental rights. That's the difference. "Who cares about home ownership when you can use whatever public toilet you want!" You mean they're allowed to exist in public? If you are not allowed to use the bathroom that corresponds to your identity, you're basically not allowed to use the bathroom in public at all. Which means you're not really allowed to be in public at all.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  You know, a couple weeks ago, I was reading a link (from HN, IIRC) about liberal (really!) feminists who didn't want to share a public bathroom with someone who was genetically male but self-described as female. They viewed it as males defining what female is. The article went on to describe how feminists who hold such views have been subject to literal physical attack by others on the left. I'm pretty sure I can paint something in that as "denying people fundamental rights"...

rajbot 9y ago

I was raised in the rural midwest and moved to San Francisco for the same reasons as you. It is shocking how much religious extremism, homophobia, and racism exist in the midwest. Growing up in the midwest, kids and adults alike would come up us and tell us we were going to hell, or to go back to where we came from, or call us racial slurs like "sandnigger". Grown adults had no problem harassing little kids at school or the playground. People shot our windows a few times. Racism is so widespread in Missouri that the NAACP has issued a travel advisory and warned minorities to not travel there. Earlier this year a Garmin engineer was murdered in Kansas by a racist who walked into a bar and shot two Indians. There is no way I would raise my children in the midwest.

DuskStar 9y ago
>Missouri >Kansas We have very different ideas of what states qualify as the midwest.
- rajbot 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States
  - DuskStar 9y ago
    Huh. To me, being from Michigan, those are both the south.
    - muninn_ 9y ago
      Yeah, the "Midwest" is a stupid term. Great Lakes region is where Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc. call home. I don't think there's much in common with somebody who is from Nebraska or Kansas anymore than I think somebody in rural California or some random place in Arizona has much in common with people from the Great Lakes region.

lr4444lr 9y ago

"I did not want to live in a state where the legislature had nothing better to do than fight the culture war to win votes for the next election" Funny, I know plenty of people who want to leave east coast cities for the exact same reason with the political poles switched.

ams6110 9y ago

Glad to infer you learned not to stereotype. /s

justin66 9y ago

> the bible thumpers win this state by a landslide of gerrymandering Not by a landslide. There's a reason it's called a "swing state." (and, regrettably, it's not because the kids dress up and go dancing...) > The midwests relationship with silicon valley terminates at the facebook, google, and twitter HTTP connection for a damn good reason. Let's be honest, that is a pretty closed-minded thing to say.