Conflicting Interests in Relationships

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I am officially faced with the decision of either giving up my interests, or renouncing Christianity and conservatism.

Here is what a conservative Christian will probably think:

"If he's watching South Park, which has tons of dirty words, next thing you know, he'll be watching porn, then he'll fool around on me behind my back, and probably start using drugs and getting drunk every night."

Here is what a liberal will probably think:

"He's a Christian. He'll probably start picketing soldiers' funerals, then he'll bomb abortion clinics, then he'll start killing people because of their race or sexual orientation."

Tim, so long as you cling to these absolutist viewpoints with arbitrary clauses and no room to change your perspective, then I don't think things will change for you. You are making assumptions of others than far exceed the assumptions you presume that prospective partners will make of you.


M.

The situation is that Christians avoid me because I watch the Simpsons and South Park, but liberal fans of those shows avoid me because I am a Christian.

Many people suggest that I live somewhere else. But the thing stopping me from moving to a more tolerant place are that many of those places have very high costs of living (i.e. Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Boston, etc.), and have been affected more by the recession.

Texas is probably the only state I can afford that still has plenty of jobs. Plus we don't have a state income tax. Only two states had costs of living comparable to Texas--Wyoming and South Dakota.

As for leaving the U.S., I have deep reservations about that because taxes are higher in other countries (60% or more in some cases, compared to about 10-15% in the U.S.), and universal health care is supposedly very inefficient, with people waiting a year for certain surgeries.