The total ignorance on the Atlas as to how Southern churches, including blacks ones, as in this case, treat outsiders is hilarious.
You didn't elaborate on how we should expect them to treat outsiders as you do with your insider black southern religious knowledge. But if you mean that expecting them to think of gay people as more than their sexualities is ignorance on our part then.. laugh away. Silly us!
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/13418
FWIW, this building used to house a white megachurch, with private day school, of course, before those people moved to the neighborhood by the thousands. It goes without saying, that church then decamped out to the distant suburb of Collierville. A great many churches around here are still named The [now ghetto neighborhood] Baptist/Christian/Etc (but usually one of the first two) Church, decades after they moved to greener whiter pastures. Anyhow, that neighborhood changed/went downhill around the late 1990s. The current congregation moved in and erected the statue (with much fanfare; dedicated on July 4th, bien sur) and here we are. Southern churchy people of both races are still working on seeing people of the other racial group (Asians, Hispanics, and "others" aren't even thought of at all for the most part) as more than just their race. Although it would be wonderful if they did, expecting them to extend that courtesy to gays is incredibly naive, so much so (and you might just be Australian and not know this, though American posters do it all the time too) that one can only conclude that Religious Privilege doesn't permit you too see what is blindingly obvious. Not only does de facto religion (I have no interest in getting into a theological or theoretical debate) not help solve these divisions in life, it strongly contributes to the common sentiment of not quite actual hatred but instead a routine disregard for mutual humanity nestled inside a smug sense of superiority.
Thanks for your insight (genuinely). I'd like to remind you (not for the first time) that I am an American and spent the first 22 years of my life in Ohio, and most of that time I was an evangelical Christian in an extremely white environment with very conservative people surrounding me. I don't know the racial mindset of Southerners terribly well though so your post was nice, although not particularly surprising either.
I don't doubt many posters here are aware of those dynamics on some level. I don't understand why that would make anyone feel less disapproving. It's not any more excusable. Or is your point that we simply shouldn't be shocked or surprised? That's fair, I guess.
