Christianity

I am a NW woman. I was born and raised here, went to college and got my first fulltime job with benefits here, got married and had children here.We did live in Florida for one and a half years, which was culture shock in several ways.
1. People/neighbors can be super nice. Super super genuinely nice. I attribute it to a strong influence of midwest values, since no one I met was born in Florida. They were all from somewhere else.
2. Correct spelling is an option on public signage.
3. Recycling is a bad word, and it is okay to throw garbage out your car window. If you are a smoker, go ahead and dump your car ashtray out the window at stop lights.
4. Christianity was not the grace in the background of your life that kept things together. It was to be used as a tool to confront.
Florida was the first time I ran into the type of Christianity I had read about in books or seen on feisty tv.
I worked with a gal who one day was ripping into homosexuality while sitting at her desk. I think it is ridiculous to hate who another individual loves when it is not your flipping life. I also have the deep seated suspicion that men and women that are rabid anger spitters about the sins of being gay are themselves drawn to same sex love. But obviously not comfortable with themselves or that lifestyle so vilify others. Anyway........I told this gal I thought it ridiculous. She said gays were pedophiles. I told her it is primarily heterosexuals that are pedophiles. Our conversation rolled into extreme (what I will call) bible thumping. This was my first foray into the bible being used as a tool of hate. There is alot of crap in the bible that we no longer use. There is alot of guidance in the bible, also. Here is my NW sensibility coming in. We think about things. And we are supposed to let things slide off our backs... live and let live type of mentality. I have argued about Faith. As in, I have been told having faith means you don't question. It just is. But see, that faith is based on a human interpretation at any given time. And humans are notoriously fallable. And we intrepret with the knowledge and background and fears and strengths at that point in our lives, within the framework of our societal times.
Why spend more time trying to control another individuals thought process and belief system rather than focus on your own beliefs and how that works in a larger global framework. Building community, faith, support and christianity are not bad words. My co-worker and her ilk were making them so.
Oh, and she also spread the rumor that I was gay throughout the office, which was considered a big insult and a bad mark on my name. I laughed. She needed to get out more, see things, and not look for Satan in the Proctor and Gamble logo (that was our other argument on another day.) Grace and faith are not determined by a book with gold edges held above the heads of others and used as a weapon. Stop that crap.