Mrrzy.. I have friends in Virginia, including the southern part. I have met some of the people near my friends who'd heat the tar for you. I lived in Kansas till I was 37. I had good friends who were sane and non-religious. We often felt outnumbered.... and that was in a larger city.
   It was perfectly possible to go for months & years without a confrontation, but one learns to know when not to speak one's mind in public. Most of the schools avoided direct religious pressure, but one could sense it and hear remarks.
When I was a graduate teaching fellow in Philosophy, we had to grade shortish papers on an assigned topic. We made a mistake the first time and thought we'd make the topic 'interesting' and assigned "The Existence of God". We explained several times that this was not about accepting or denying God... but about understanding the philosophic arguments for each side. We might as well have explained in Sanskrit. (Well, maybe a dozen or three out of 300-400 got it... their religious background made the majority slip into expressing their faith..often to the exclusion of understand the basic assignment.)
   It was a learning experience for ME!