///josep...It is NOT nonsense. There are rules against 'reciting prayers to Jesus' over loudspeakers at high school football games, but it is routinely flouted in Texas.

What is nonsense is: "If you encounter it, you report it." and all the rest of your assertions that it either doesn't happen, or can be easily stopped by 'reporting it'!!

I don't know which parts of the South you visit, but there ARE many areas where not being a Baptist is looked down on and being an atheist is downright dangerous.

Obviously, not 'every' Southern Christian acts like that, and there are oases of relative sanity (such as Austin, Texas)...and there are even token attempts to enforce the laws in many places, but you simply have no idea what can happen if, for example, a Jewish family objects to their child's exposure to compulsory Christian prayers in school!

I, myself, belong to a group whose primary focus is woodworking, but whose national meetings (which I attend intermittantly) always begin with a prayer calling on Jesus! I have watched a couple of Jewish members manage to head for the restroom to avoid being in the room. It is just EASIER than a formal protest! One member has a little wooden string & stick puzzle he foists on new people....imprinted with Bible verses.

If I had time, I could cite dozens of similar examples, and not all in the South...it's just that Alabama, Texas, S. Carolina, Georgia, and several others, are the worst offenders. VERY SLOW progress is being made, but it will be decades before anything resembling universal fairness is approximated..... ///

The Southerners I've met have been very nice and none have ever tried to foist their religion on me. As for praying at football games, I got some news for you--do you have the slightest idea how rampant christianity is in sports all the way to the pro level? Probably your favorite pro athletes are ardent christians. And football is probably the most infested.

And yes I'm well how racist and bigoted Texans are. I'm well aware that you will probably be killed if you complain about how racist and bigoted they are. But here's what I say--SO WHAT??? I think it was Franklin who said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Freedom, ironically, isn't free. Ask the civil rights marchers who paid the price for it. But if someone doesn't do it, it doesn't change. So sit there in silence and take it or get up and do something about it come hell or high water (and you can expect both) or leave the state.

Sorry but I am unsympathetic. You live there by your own choice. And if you don't stand up for yourself, who is going to do it for you?