The L Word: Mississippi

[NotALoserLikeYou]

This documentary was on last night and it was pretty interesting. You can find it repeating on Showtime. It's about lesbians living in Mississippi and I found it fascinating, because it really shows how the bible belt is like. I don't think I knew it was that way. Even after coming out, many of these women still prayed, and pray now, to be changed or saved or forgiven. They are living with families that reject them and a total fear of God. There is an ex minister in there, and also a woman who was a lesbian all her life and now she is a born again christian. Anyhow, here are some links:

slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/08/08/l_word_mississippi_hate_the_sin_on_showtime_reviewed.html

sho.com/sho/reality-docs/titles/3403140/l-word-mississippi-hate-the-sin#/index

[Mama Mia]

Just watched this.....wow, just absolutely heartbreaking. It's so hard for me to comprehend how absolutely pervasive the anti-gay rhetoric is, and how accepted by everyone! And what was shocking to me was how the extreme ( to me) religious beliefs were just part of everyone's culture. I know that sounds really naive, but I just hadn't seen a documentary before that showed that so clearly to me. And I've never been to the area. Obviously you have anti gay sentiment everywhere, but living my entire life in the outer reaches of San Francisco -- it's just a very alien culture. So many of these women were so self-hating, it was tragic.

[RosyDaisy]

It's the same here in Alabama. I honestly don't know how my future SIL and her partner cope with it. At least they have a close knit set of family and friends who love and support them. They have started going to my church (which is very liberal and accepting of LGBT) because they still consider themselves Christians. These wonderful people are intelligent, educated, have good jobs, have a loving relationship which is the exact opposite of how homophobes portray them.

[Mama Mia]

It's the same here in Alabama. I honestly don't know how my future SIL and her partner cope with it. At least they have a close knit set of family and friends who love and support them. They have started going to my church (which is very liberal and accepting of LGBT) because they still consider themselves Christians. These wonderful people are intelligent, educated, have good jobs, have a loving relationship which is the exact opposite of how homophobes portray them.

Is the dropping religion into virtually every conversation, even with strangers, that common? That's what really stood out to me- I know it was partly the subject matter -- but it seemed like everyone, everywhere was throwing out a prayer or God or Jesus reference or talking about church in ways that would seem......odd, to me, if I didn't know the other people really well and for some reason we were talking about religion. Like they say " God bless you, what church do you go to" the way I would expect someone to say " hi, nice to meet you, where do you work?" ....if that makes sense.

[RosyDaisy]

I would hardly call my future SIL and her partner strangers. They brought up the fact that they couldn't find a church that would accept them. That's when I invited them to my church. They brought up the religion topic, not me. Again they weren't perfect strangers. They were 2 people I knew very well.

Yeah, here in the South, religion always finds it's way into every conversation. I NEVER ask a perfect stranger about their religious belief. I'm more like you Mama Mia with the "nice to meet you, isn't it beautiful day". etc.

[Mama Mia]

I would hardly call my future SIL and her partner strangers. They brought up the fact that they couldn't find a church that would accept them. That's when I invited them to my church. They brought up the religion topic, not me. Again they weren't perfect strangers. They were 2 people I knew very well.

Yeah, here in the South, religion always finds it's way into every conversation. I NEVER ask a perfect stranger about their religious belief. I'm more like you Mama Mia with the "nice to meet you, isn't it beautiful day". etc.

I'm sorry, I wasn't implying you wouldn't have a conversation with your family about religion. Or talking about your family at all. I was talking about how on the show we are discussing it seemed, to me, that people brought up religion, in casual conversation, all the time with every person they met. Of course religion comes up with family and friends, that's not what I was talking about.

[dramallama]

That's one huge reason I will never again voluntarily live in the south. I find it totally off-putting and invasive and I just can't deal with it. I previously lived in North Carolina for several years and got very sick of the frequent attempts by people I had barely met to cram Jesus down my throat; I can't imagine I'd last all of half a day in Alabama or Mississippi.