mom tries

I grew up in an 8,000-person, 500-cow town. Since this burg is half that populated (but doubly cowulated), I fully expected it to be twice as petty and stifling. I also knew it would stink twice as much when fertilizer was spread and it didn't rain. I really underestimated here, on both counts.

About 80% of this town is Lutheran, yet they still manage to break into factions depending on the TYPE of Lutheran. There is a serious schism between the public high school people and the Lutheran high school people. The most enthusiastic school boosters are barely on speaking terms with their counterparts at the rival school. When we have our annual summer parade, the Lutheran kids won't even queue up with the rest of the town in the public school parking lot. They gather in THEIR OWN parking lot and join the parade in the middle of Main Street. I am NOT making this shit up.

To this, I can only say: whaaattt?? I'm from the Boston suburbs. My town was 80% Irish Catholic. My knowledge of major US religions went like this: Catholics, Jews and Protestants. I didn't know the "Protestant" category broke down any further; I really didn't. Of course, I also had yet to meet any Republicans, although I did meet Teddy Kennedy.

I was in college in Chicago before I discovered there were different types of Protestants. In my dorm, I recall that it seemed to break down by race and geography. For example, the black girls were often Baptists and would leave pamphlets under my door warning I would burn in hell for being a nonbeliever. In person, they were very friendly though, unless they were pledging a black sorority, in which case they were "on line" and couldn't talk with or do anything with people outside their pledge class. The girl in the next room once secretly begged me for some of my Mom's care package food, because she had missed that day's group lunch AND dinner and couldn't go to the cafeteria solo. I also picked up that the pasty white farm girls from places like "Austin" (Minn., NOT Texas, ya doofus) were largely Lutheran, whatever that was.

Many years later, I did date a Lutheran in Chicago and found out there were various sects called "synods." I also attended a few services. To me they seemed exactly like tiny Catholic churches except that they didn't talk about Mary quite so much.

Only since moving to Wisconsin, however, did I gather that there really is a huge cultural (if not religious) difference between the Lutheran factions. The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), which seems to have taken over in this town, is extremely right-wing. Women may do all sorts of serious work on committees but CAN'T VOTE. Hello, what century are we in here? This synod runs the Lutheran school system. So the schism between the schools is not simply healthy rivalry so much as some sort of religio-political litmus test. (By the way, the Catholic church is also pretty reactionary here. The priest told one October Sunday gathering that John Kerry was part of the "axis of evil." I bet George Bush would have been proud. He doesn't mind being misquoted at all, as long as the right sentiment is there.)

Ah, America. Thank god we have reality TV to unite us. Maybe we can get Kelly Clarkson to move here and run for mayor. She looks like she could be Lutheran. We could definitely use the karaoke talent.