Having lived in Alabama as a Catholic yankee I was met with at best extreme ignorance about my then beliefs and at worst outright harassment and discrimination

Having lived in Alabama as a Catholic yankee I was met with at best extreme ignorance about my then beliefs and at worst outright harassment and discrimination for having the wrong accent and wrong Christian denomination. Within the first week of moving there, we had a Klan rally in town. Most of the other local Catholic families, if they could afford it, moved their children to private school to escape. The schools had corporal punishment, and demanded that we call our teachers sir or ma'am, a custom that I was not used to and have encountered nowhere else. Failing to do so landed me in detention within the first month or so. I was there for the original Roy Moore saga. This was 15+ years ago and in a rural community with dirt roads, so I'm sure things have changed a bit and do not apply to the whole state, but checking the school website corporal punishment is still alive and well and Alabama nearly elected Roy Moore yet again. I would never live there so long as the current toxic blend of religion and politics dominates the Southern political scene.