Gay vs. Christian - Jason Collins vs. Tim Tebow

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This simple-minded chart belies the fact that the only real majority in the US is a secular one that tries to avoid discussing religion (or non-religion) at all costs in favor of a do-whatever-you-want attitude. Great swaths of those identifying as Christian are functionally secular, and practicing Christians are a minority.

According to polls a majority of Americans go to church at least once a month, so that depends on how you define "practicing Christian" I guess. It doesn't show that people who aren't purely nominal Christians aren't a minority obviously.

The only other thing worth pointing out is the First Amendment obviously protects one's right to ridicule other people's beliefs just as it protects the right to hold those beliefs. So mocking people for their view on something does not violate the First Amendment. Trying to prohibit this mocking would.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

the brand of Christianity that is prevalent in the US has a strong inbuilt need to claim a persecution complex.

Only since the 1970s or so... (Except in the south, but even before then, it was different).

How much of that persecution complex do you think has to do with the (ancestral) social class status of most white "evangelical" Protestants (and the corresponding "low church" status of their churches?)

When you consider that "Southern-style" evangelical Protestantism is a truly national phenomenon now that has also made big gains in middle-class white suburban respectability (take a look, for example, of the phenomenon of the suburban "mega-churches")...well, there's surely been some kind of cultural assimilation of white "evangelicals" into the broader American mainstream.

White "evangelicals" have effectively joined the broader American middle-class (dare I say bourgeois) suburban culture that they used to pride themselves on being separate from. That has created a lot of tension, both between evangelicals and other groups and within the evangelical communities. Yet white evangelical culture still retains its populist (in a cultural, value-based sense) roots. The difference is, they are now engaging and participating in the broader American middle-class culture as a part of that culture.

That's a pretty awful description of modern day American evangelicalism, which is definitely NOT an import to the rest of America from the South. I'll elaborate when it's not so late and I have more time.

But there's really no reason for the persecution complex than all groups seeing it. For a secular conservative version look at the people who say things like "White males are the most persecuted group in America today." Or for other examples, look at what people like Dov Hikind consider anti-Semitic, or the Catholic League's reports on "anti-Catholicism" and what constitutes it in their view.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Alright. Basically modern day American evangelicalism is NOT the churches of the South from the Civil War to segregation exported to the rest of the country. In fact most Southernors in the 19th century were mainline Protestants, mostly Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian or traditional Baptist (which was more associated with mainline back then.) Pentecostals and most fundamentalist denominations today didn't even exist at time.

Even during the Jim Crow heyday, this was mostly true. The KKK membership was largely Methodist (somewhat ironic since the United Methodist Church today has a pretty large number of black membership, especially in the South, but at the time it didn't exist and was a bunch of smaller factions), and the Southern Baptists were almost mainline and no more conservative than most modern day mainline denominations. Even during the Civil Rights era this was true. The SBC liberalized at the same rate as other mainline denominations until the 80s when this started being reversed with a conservative takeover and shedding of the more liberal churches to more liberal Baptist associations. In 1976 Jimmy Carter wasn't too odd in the SBC (he later joined the American Baptists, a more liberal denomination.) In fact during the Civil Rights Movement most of the evangelicals were on the pro-civil rights side, which makes sense as they were basically the only ones with integrated churches back then. Furthermore most evangelical denominations that ordain women, even conservative ones, did so far before most mainline denominations today did.

Most modern day evangelicals and fundamentalists come from the Great Awakenings, which was hardly something that existed only in the South (the burned over district is obviously not in the South.) Sure the South was affected like everywhere else by it, perhaps even disproportionately, but it wasn't something exclusive to the South that gradually trickled to the rest of the country.