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but you may be passed over for promotion Why single out "Small town America"? It wasn't that long ago that here on HN, many were calling for the resignation

by crusso 12y ago

but you may be passed over for promotion Why single out "Small town America"? It wasn't that long ago that here on HN, many were calling for the resignation of the Mozilla CEO because of his political position on gay marriage. Being an atheist in some small towns is no worse for your career than being a Fundamentalist Christian in Hollywood. I say this as an atheist: Obnoxious toe-the-line political correctness is in all corners of our society.

logfromblammo 12y ago
I only use small town America as a contrasting example because that is what I am familiar with. Also, it has less to do with the absolute size of the town than its homogeneity. Big City America might not punish you as much for being atheist, but as you mention, it has its own prejudices. Imagine what might happen if you told your sugar-baby something racist and then she leaked it to the media! Tolerance for the alien is definitely a learned behavior. If you have kids, please try to teach it to them.
hga 12y ago
Indeed, as far as I can tell an atheist/agnostic (the latter would be me and my father) who's minimally respectful of the religious will have a much easier time of it here than a conservative (that would also be me and my father) in those various enlightened big cities and industries. As long as you can tolerate the occasional born again Christian who wants to save you (again, politeness goes a long way). As for LGBT issues, if I just restrict it to "gay bashing", the lists here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_acts_of_violence_against_LGBT_people#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_acts_of_violence_a... and here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_acts_of_violence_against_LGBT_people#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_acts_of_violence_a... show that big cities are not even vaguely immune to the problem. (Although I'd caveat those lists of incidents based on the ones I actually know something about: Harvey Milk and George Moscone weren't killed because the former was gay, but because of SF city politics and their murderer's personal problems (that the conviction was for manslaughter with a short sentence, well, the Twinkie defense is another reason SF is infamous). The 1999 Fort Campbell incident was not as generally portrayed, although my information is not citable, comes from the son of a good friend who was there, collected evidence, etc. And lately the beautification of Matthew Shepard has come under serious reexamination.) Perhaps because so many of these cities were and still are very anti-effective self-defense, there's this partial answer to the problem which is much more applicable in "small town America": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Pistols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Pistols

by crusso 12y ago

logfromblammo 12y ago

I only use small town America as a contrasting example because that is what I am familiar with. Also, it has less to do with the absolute size of the town than its homogeneity. Big City America might not punish you as much for being atheist, but as you mention, it has its own prejudices. Imagine what might happen if you told your sugar-baby something racist and then she leaked it to the media! Tolerance for the alien is definitely a learned behavior. If you have kids, please try to teach it to them.

hga 12y ago

Indeed, as far as I can tell an atheist/agnostic (the latter would be me and my father) who's minimally respectful of the religious will have a much easier time of it here than a conservative (that would also be me and my father) in those various enlightened big cities and industries. As long as you can tolerate the occasional born again Christian who wants to save you (again, politeness goes a long way). As for LGBT issues, if I just restrict it to "gay bashing", the lists here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_acts_of_violence_against_LGBT_people#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_acts_of_violence_a... and here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_acts_of_violence_against_LGBT_people#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_acts_of_violence_a... show that big cities are not even vaguely immune to the problem. (Although I'd caveat those lists of incidents based on the ones I actually know something about: Harvey Milk and George Moscone weren't killed because the former was gay, but because of SF city politics and their murderer's personal problems (that the conviction was for manslaughter with a short sentence, well, the Twinkie defense is another reason SF is infamous). The 1999 Fort Campbell incident was not as generally portrayed, although my information is not citable, comes from the son of a good friend who was there, collected evidence, etc. And lately the beautification of Matthew Shepard has come under serious reexamination.) Perhaps because so many of these cities were and still are very anti-effective self-defense, there's this partial answer to the problem which is much more applicable in "small town America": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Pistols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Pistols