Re: CHAT: cultural interpretation [was Re: THEORY: language and the brain]

On Fri, Jul 04, 2003 at 09:13:01PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> > not just in the USA, but in Atlanta, Georgia, smack dab in the
> > middle of the Bible Belt.
>
> Come come.  Atlanta may be in, but is surely not of, the Bible Belt.
> It's a fairly cosmopolitan city, in fact.  Try singing the same tune in
> small-town Georgia.
Fair enough.  Though the town where I grew up, about 100 miles
south of Atlanta and sporting a population under 50,000, was also
unusually cosmopolitan for this part of the country, mostly due to
the presence of an Air Force base.

But the point was how such people are treated in the US, and Atlanta is
unquestionably in the US, and in a fairly conservative part of the country.
However cosmopolitan it is, it can't compare with those ultra-liberals out
on the Left Coast.  I wouldn't credit any examples from, say, the Bay Area
as being representative of the country at large, but I have to think that
getting domestic partnership health benefits as an HIV+ homosexual in
Atlanta is pretty impressive progress.

-Mark