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| s. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Living in the Midwest when you're a committed liberal has it down side.
The down side is making
friends when the majority of your co workers and
neighbors believe the opposite of what you believe. Even finding a church can
be a major obstacle. I live in a rural area when the closet Unitarian
congregation is more than an hour drive. I live in an area where the ration of
Democrats to Republican is four to one. Still there are advantages; I hope I
can give the locals the opportunity to understand that I do not secretly have
horns under my short little do. Still I find myself explaining; to public
school teacher why my children do not reject evolution or want to debate a
women's right to choose. These are situations that I never intended to face
when I chose to live in the Midwest .
My survival guide is pretty simple. Someone the other day
mentioned Meet Up. This is a great site to discover your local closeted
liberals. You may find an enclave of like minded liberals is gathering monthly
at the local library to discuss the dreaded taboos such as gay marriage.
Another get source of potential friends and political colleagues is email
lists. Yahoo groups come in every flavor of lifestyle and belief system. Who
knows your neighbor may be a card carrying member of the ACLU. Don't be
hesitant to use the privacy of your home computer to find like minded folk.
The other way I have found to survive life in the
cornfields is to look to the local community college. Youth have a way of being
more open minded than most other groups. In one conservative community I was
able to involve my boys in envelop stuffing for a local NAREL group at the
local liberal arts school. It was an opportunity for my high school age boy to
understand there were people close to his age that shared his values.
Taking classes in low cost continuing education programs
at these schools may or attending guest lectures are another way for you to
connect with those who share your intellectual interests. Your experience in
the conservative communities does not need to be that of an intellectual waste
land. Supporting your local adult theatre groups or art associations, even if
you yourself are not an artisan, are a good way to connect and support a better
overall cultural environment.
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| I created the graph myself with data from a Pew Research Center study, taken from here. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I admit I am not likely to accept my landlord's invitation
to bible study in hopes of finding someone to have coffee with. Still it is
hard because a large percentage of socializing in my community take place
within the local church groups. A number of youth activities also only take
place within the local churches. There is simply not a large amount of
inexpensive activities for teenagers in our town. I am going to try a little
experiment. I hope that our local mainstream protestant and sign my youngest up
for the local youth group. I feel the worse that could happen is that he learn
a tolerance for those who think differently than his family. In the end as a
true liberal I want my children to come to their own moral conclusions and
political beliefs. The funny thing is that old cliché about the off spring of
liberals becoming Young Republicans is not true. Our children really do end up
reflecting and hopefully personally refining the values we teach them.
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