Mrrzy, if I knew where you live I have forgotten it, but it seems to me that it must be in the American south. That is the only region even remotely like what you describe. I live in the American west- first in Oregon and now in Alaska. I have to say that I have NEVER heard of anyone acting or reacting as you say they do.

"As in, when my kid joins a public school chorus, he sings hymns and psalms and gospel, but nothing about, say, Emmet Till or something actually educational. There are a lot of ways to teach 4-part harmony - they don't need to be singing Praise Jesus to learn that."

Huh? In the West children are not even ALLOWED to sing psalms and hymns in public schools. So where are your children that that is what they sing? If you enrolled them in a parochial school that bespeaks a fierce aggressiveness that is bound to bring grief and contention to you, and to them.

In the west, I don't know - and have never known - people who kept my daughter from playing with theirs because she didn't go to church. And she was little a generation ago, when one might safely expect a more aggressively devout community.Where the heck do you live? It seems to me - and freely admitting that I don't know this to be true - that you may be perceived as doing your own version of proselytizing.

I know many religious people- and many of them are good, wholesome people. I know many non-religious people - and many of them are good, wholesome people. In my experience you tend to get back what you give.