[cookiecaper]

>"Not being fired for being gay" is literally the lowest bar I can think of other that "not being imprisoned for being gay".

The point is that the community at large was willing to accept these people as role models for their children and did so with minimal hostility or interference (visible anyway, since I can't see what happens behind closed doors). Entrusting a teaching position is a little different than any other random job.

While I'm sure there are horror stories, in practice it would be very rare to find someone who was legitimately "fired for being gay".

The myth that Republican areas are hostile wastelands with poor quality of life for minorities has much more to do with confirmation bias and a desire to justify high cost of living than anything else, IMO. This is not to discount any personal experience you may have had, just my opinion on the sentiment in general.

[throwaway729]

> The myth that Republican areas are hostile wastelands with poor quality of life for minorities has much more to do with confirmation bias and a desire to justify high cost of living than anything else, IMO.

If only that were true, I'd move back to the midwest in a heart beat.

> This is not to discount any personal experience you may have had, just my opinion on the sentiment in general.

Name a "that doesn't happen here" scenario -- from blatant racial discrimination/brutality in policing to "bobby's parents sent him to pray-the-gay-away camp" -- and I experienced or directly witnessed a friend experience it before coming of age.

Whenever people shame me for being overly harsh on midwestern culture, I stop and feel guilty for a split second. Then I think back to these victims of its excesses and the guilt quickly subsides.

I firmly believe there are decent communities in the midwest. Especially in its cities. I don't doubt your or anyone else when you say you've had good experiences.

Unfortunately, that doesn't change anything about the fundamental cultural trade-winds of the aggregate region. Or the effect they have on people caught in the zip code one over.

[hueving]

>Name a "that doesn't happen here" scenario -- from blatant racial discrimination/brutality in policing to "bobby's parents sent him to pray-the-gay-away camp" -- and I experienced or directly witnessed a friend experience it before coming of age.

So you were born 20+ years ago? It sounds like your notion of the Midwest is about as stuck in the past as the notion that San Francisco is a hippie mecca.

>Whenever people shame me for being overly harsh on midwestern culture, I stop and feel guilty for a split second. Then I think back to these victims of its excesses and the guilt quickly subsides.

And you should feel guilty for continually shitting on a place you have no association with anymore.

[throwaway729]

> So you were born 20+ years ago?

And left less than 3 years ago. Not much had changed. In some ways, it got a lot worse. My perceptions aren't stuck in the past.

Again, don't believe me? Go person-by-person down your general assembly and send an email to each asking how they feel about allowing business owners the freedom to not serve LGBT people, or whether they will sponsor a bill to ban conversion therapy.

Or for that matter, ask if they support legislation to outlaw incrimination against LGBT individuals in hiring! Most midwestern states don't have such a law on the book.

And not just your representative -- all of them. Or even just yours and all from surrounding counties. After all, we wouldn't want to generalize.

> And you should feel guilty for continually shitting on a place you have no association with anymore.

Why?

I don't think the midwest is, on balance, a nice place to live. I think the cultural downsides of the region eventually bleed into your life, even if you try to cloister yourself in one of the urban liberal islands. My opinion may not be fair (I think it is, but allow the possibility that a lifetime of bad experiences was somehow unrepresentative). But it sure as hell isn't uninformed.

I think people who are considering moving to the midwest from a coastal area -- or especially from abroad -- should hear this perspective.