Maryland is a confusing state. Solidly Democratic to a fault (to the point of almost eliminating any opposing view points, even within their own party), a large cross section of immigrant and ‘been here a while’s, and a sharp divide of city and rural life.

The rural side of things grabs the headlines today. What I thought had exploded onto the blogosphere today, was rather more of a slow rollout of shock at the actions of many students and parents in Rising Sun a town near the Pennsylvania and Delaware border.

The short recap: A Student of Rising Sun High School, Chad Skyler,  decides to start a non-religious student club after seeing blatantly religious student club at school. For his efforts he gets threatened and cajoled by peers and their parents.

Real classy shit.

You can read the extended versions here, here, and finally here (though I’m loathe to link in to a Facebook page).

The only thing I can really add here is I find it interesting that I had to hear about it from bloggers in the midwest. Not a peep from local papers or the state-wide paper, the Baltimore Sun. Reverse the variables in this story and I would be very surprised if it wasn’t front page news. And this is why people get a bellyful of the hypocritical stances pumped into people’s heads by the fervently religious.

This is a good life lesson for Chad -  People are pricks and they’ll use their lack of critical thinking or logic to drag you down to their level, especially when it comes to matters of religion. Good luck, kid.