At what point is America no longer a safe place for me to live?

[Jehanne]

I have lived in Iowa for my entire life; never been asked that question.

[arewethereyet]

I have lived in Iowa for my entire life; never been asked that question.

Being from Dyersville, religious affiliation was pretty much assumed.  My mom was one of few non-Catholics in town.

[Mister Agenda]

Well, considering the lack of irreligious politicians (at least publicly) here, that's a clue as to what it's like in general.  There are some areas/states/regions where it is worse than others.  Specific to the community I am in, it's pretty stark.  People from elsewhere, especially internationally, think I'm joking that it is very often within the first 5 questions here when meeting someone for the first time that you get "where do you go to church?"  Not if, but which one.  People, including co-workers of mine, think nothing of making rather blatant religious statements or asking questions along those lines even in a work setting - it honestly does not even occur to them that someone they know and like *could* be irreligious.

When I lived in SC and my son played ball I was often introduced to new people and it went like this:
AWTY - This is Mr. and Mrs. Soandso.  Their son is whatshisname.
Mr. and Mr's Soandso this is AWTY, her son is suchandsuch.
Me - Hello, nice to meet you.
Mr. and Mrs. Soandso - Who is your church family?
Me - in my head - which is worse admitting you don't have a church family or revealing that you were raised Catholic?

Every damn time.  Didn't even make it to the 5th question.

Can confirm. A conversation like that is how I wound up coming out as an atheist at work.

[TheJefe817]

Can confirm. A conversation like that is how I wound up coming out as an atheist at work.

I'm becoming concerned this may be a near-term reality for me.  My boss commented on a call with me recently that she was hoping a hiring decision would basically go well according to god's plan - with no preambl to determine what I might think about such thing.  I just mumbled something about hoping for the best.  In another situation where a co-worker's loved one passed away, we had a lot of the standard "thoughts and prayers" in the department, but I'm not sure if that was sincerely prayer-related or just the stupid shit peole tend to parrot in situations like that.

[The Grand Nudger]

The Wife has been asking me whether I'd consider moving out of country, so, on that basis..I'd say that time of anyone being safe, in the us, has passed.

Trouble is that there's nowhere we could realistically move - outside of moving on to a boat...which is a fuckin dangerous idea to float to a guy like me. I think that's her sweetener. She wants me to think about that, ultimately decide against it as a responsible human being, and settle for Canadia. Oblique angles of attack and shit.....

[Jehanne]

Don't move; your Countrymen need you here!!

[Mister Agenda]

Driving liberals out of red states is a feature of the GQP strategy, not a bug. One more state going blue is more than they can afford to lose and retain power.

[TheJefe817]

Driving liberals out of red states is a feature of the GQP strategy, not a bug. One more state going blue is more than they can afford to lose and retain power.

Probably, but it also depends on where they move from and to.  Here in Texas, things have moved to purple from deep red, and as I understand it a lot of that has to do with movement from California.  I do not see California going red or purple anytime soon, so that movement could result in a net gain to democrats over time.

[Jehanne]

Driving liberals out of red states is a feature of the GQP strategy, not a bug. One more state going blue is more than they can afford to lose and retain power.

Probably, but it also depends on where they move from and to.  Here in Texas, things have moved to purple from deep red, and as I understand it a lot of that has to do with movement from California.  I do not see California going red or purple anytime soon, so that movement could result in a net gain to democrats over time.

I have read that a lot of Mexican Americans are drifting into the realm of evangelical Christian Republicanism, and away from the Democratic party.

[arewethereyet]

Probably, but it also depends on where they move from and to.  Here in Texas, things have moved to purple from deep red, and as I understand it a lot of that has to do with movement from California.  I do not see California going red or purple anytime soon, so that movement could result in a net gain to democrats over time.

I have read that a lot of Mexican Americans are drifting into the realm of evangelical Christian Republicanism, and away from the Democratic party.

I worked a contract job at a big, old, wealthy Baptist church in Dallas for a few months.  Their outreach was toward the Latino community.  They helped support their schools and went on mission trips specific to them and also employed several of the men of that community within the church.  They seemed to work really hard at making the community dependent upon them.

Funny - the head of accounting (much to the chagrin of many older members) was a Methodist woman.  2nd in command in the office was a woman whose husband headed a different smaller church of people of a different ethnic group.  It was sort of expected that employees be part of the congregation but it didn't seem to turn out that way.  I flew mostly under the radar as I was placed there through a staffing company.  But our little office of five didn't have a church member to be found.

I did process donations received from retirement accounts and trust accounts...the older members were often giving checks with lots of zeros and commas every month, often earmarked for the Hispanic community projects.