Living in WV as a blue dot can be problematic or stressful if I let it. So, I do my best not to let that happen. So, when things happen that I can’t really state my mind on, well, you wonderful folks get to hear about it.
For instance, my husband Jim and I were invited to an Easter lunch by the Linda, who bought the small house we used to own at the edge of our property. She, and her extended family, are all ardent Assembly of God members and are, as I call it, Christian Nice. Meaning, they are nice to you as long as you are acceptable. Of you are not acceptable, the veneer of nice remains but the heart clearly hardens.
JB (not his real name), one of the extended family, is the music director of the local AOG church, and also a home visiting hospice worker. Around here, being home-visiting anything is a risky business. The paranoia and poverty link up to create a rather incendiary situation (“Ma, they are comin’ for our stuff!”) and can get a person threatened or worse. He has some courage to do that job.
He is also a closeted gay man who married straight, adopted an autistic son and fathered a daughter - both kids are spoiled absolutely rotten between his indulgence and that of his ex-wife, likely due to divorce remorse. I notice that no one around the table made the usual tired remarks often made at holiday meals to single men in their 40s about finding a little lady to warm the home. They all know. And they all say nothing.
I think JB is a wonderful man (to me and my husband whom he hopes to bring into the church). And in that, I have to hold the knowledge that he is also a bigot. He isn’t the spittle-flying screaming type, but behind that warm, giant bear-hug exterior, lurks a bigot. Case in point: during the lunch he told a story as related to him by someone who had been to the more populated area in VA about how Muslims make their women sit separately in services and the men eat first. This was not told in a ‘culturally curious” way but with clear disdain. He carried that original man’s disdain through to his own telling, with the head shaking at such a thing - while ignoring his own religion’s observances that kill women who need medical intervention during pregnancy.
I took the moment to mention that if the original storyteller had observed an Amish service, or even a Quaker one, they would see men and women separated during the service, and Amish men eat before their women and female children in the old order sects, while even more modern families have the father get the best cuts or selection and the women select last of what is left after all males even when eating at the same time.
This seemed to get the Muslims out of the conversation, but it signals something to me. I am speculating here, but I think the Christian Nationalist churches and clergy have been instructed to begin demonizing Muslims. I know that they do receive direction from their central authority for themes and direction on sermons. AOGs are heavily in support of authoritarianism (as long as it is a Republican in charge) and Nationalism.
I need to add here (an edit) that this is not the first time or the only time I have run into this kind of thing here in Dollar General land. During a group sewing-for-charity meet, at the AOG church (unfortunately it is the place where they meet otherwise I would probably never set foot there) one of the women went off on “woeness” and trans people. I had to redirect by indicating that, as a social worker, I was often assigned people who were trans (little did this group know that my specialty was the trans population) and I found that they just wanted to have decent jobs, families and to be left alone… like everyone else. That stopped that BS but I know the bigotry is simmering under the veneer of charity and nice lady.
These folks are in for a bit of a rethink, if that is possible with their closed-mindedness, because as the growing season progresses here in the US and the growing season ends in South America, fresh food (short term) and canned/frozen food (longer term) will not just become expensive, but also hard to find. I am sure they will find a way to blame anyone but the royal poop-clown, but at some point the fact that this war was not necessary should break through. They will hate Muslims even more, I am sure. I just wish critical thinking was tough from the pulpit....
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