Life In A Baptist Town

We moved from Miami to Smallville, smack in the middle of a Red Sate in the Bible Belt. Talk about culture shock.
One of the first questions people ask upon meeting you is, "Where do you worship?"
Not "Where are you from?" or "Where do you work?" or "Where do you live?"
Where do you worship.
I don't go anywhere to worship, I say. I am a Free Thinker, I say.
Free Thinker? Their eyes glaze over and I can almost hear them say, "Free Thinker? Bless his heart."
Translated to English from the Southern, Bless your heart roughly means You are an idiot.
But, they say, where do you talk to God.
And I tell them that I don't need to go to a church to talk to god--lower case 'g'. If I want to talk to god or see proof of god, I'll go outside and look at the trees, the birds flying overhead, the bright blue sky or a cold gray one dripping with rain. If I want to talk to god, I just do it....in my yard, in my car, in my kitchen. If god listens from everywhere, he'll hear me no matter where I speak. And I don't need to prove that in a room full of mostly strangers every Sunday morning.
I am not a fan of organized religion, for a lot of reasons. I think religion is restrictive. It's a lot of can'ts and shouldn'ts judgments and condemnations. That isn't god.
God, I say, is love. God made me. I am gay. God loves me. And he doesn't need to see me in the third pew from the front, sitting next to a woman in a giant hat, fanning her double chins, and dripping sweat onto her Gideons, to know how I feel.

I just finished reading at Towleroad about the Westboro Baptist Church protesting the election of a transgender mayor, Stu Rasmussen, in Silverton, Oregon. Their "God-loving" members stood on the American flag they had tossed into the streets with signs calling President-elect Obama the Anti-Christ, signs that said Death to Fags, God Hates Fags. Luckily, the townspeople protested the Westboro Baptist Church and stood up for their mayor, stood up for themselves, and stood up for God Is Love.

Now, I know that all religions aren't Fred Phelp's religions, but his 'church' and what the Mormon church did in California by funding the Yes on H8 campaign, reinforce in my mind what is wrong with religion.
It isn't what we can't do.
What we shouldn't do.
It isn't what you say I should do, or what I say is best for you.
It's what we should do, that god wants for us.
God is Love. Upper case 'G'.