My family is liberal and not at all religious. Depending on where you grew up, that fact can either be a non-event or a defining part of who you are. In Queen Creek, Arizona, it meant everything.
I was regularly taunted by kids in my class who said that non-believers like me were going straight to hell. My mom took our Obama-Biden campaign sticker off our car after the second time it got keyed and I remember hearing the n-word in elementary school after Obama’s election. In sixth grade, I learned that a friend’s mom wouldn’t let her play with me if she knew I didn’t go to her church so I hid defining characteristics about myself—my three sisters and I had only ever been to church for my Catholic aunt’s wedding—in order to not be completely lonely.
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