Vortigern99 said:
snip lengthy and irate post
I understand how you feel, I lived in Georgia (deep in the Bible Belt) all my life and Georgia (and the people that live there) have a lot of stereotypes. I now live in Kentucky, where there are a lot of stereotypes. I'm fairly certain anywhere else you go, you'll wind up in an area with a lot stereotypes.
So perhaps you should remember that next time you hear a stereotype about Texas and keep your cool. 'kay?
As to the OP, I'm certain there were reasons we're not privy to that they made this ruling. Had the winds been blowing a different direction I'm sure they would have gleefully ruled the opposite.
"Lengthy and irate"? "Keep my cool"? Can you please indicate in the snipped post where I am being "irate" and where you believe I need to "keep my cool"? I think my tone and language is quite reasonable:
You said a mouthful there, Elizabeth! Every time a thread pops up about an event or social phenomenon in Texas -- anywhere on the 'Net, not just here at the JREF -- people who don't live here, and/or have never spent a day in their life here, decide to chime in about how deplorable the culture in Texas is, how stupid its residents are, how backwards its ways.
These are the same people who will argue with you if you talk about the Texas coastline ("Texas does not have beaches or islands!") and who think Texas is a desert full of cacti and tumbleweeds. To them, it seems, our cultural heritage is as barren as they imagine our landscape to be.
I say: Fine. Good. Stay out. Keep to your delusions. The traffic is getting too thick around here anyway.
More on-topic, yes -- this state is full of Christians. Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists. I invite one and all to point to a state in the US that is not. Meanwhile, as evinced in the OP, we also have masses of free-thinkers, intellectuals, scientists, skeptics, agnostics, atheists, educators, artists -- in short, people who defy the absurd stereotype forced on us by the rest of the country.
Mudcat, your condescension -- "
So perhaps you should remember that next time you hear a stereotype about Texas and keep your cool. 'kay?" is unnecessary and unwelcome. My task here is to explain to those who do not have any way of knowing otherwise, such as Bikerdruid with whom I've so far had a pleasant exchange of information, that Texas is much more than it may seem to outsiders. Why you expect me to ignore inaccurate stereotypes is a mystery for the ages.