My reason for posting this question is to get some perspective, since I don't live further west than Indiana.
Indiana has a lot of conservative tendencies, usually opposes progressive policies, and a little old school bigotry in the form of religion based disagreement with people's life styles, like letter community.
From an outsiders perspective, TX, OK, MO etc are even more extreme.
This permalink above from a comment from a person referencing recently proposed legislation against letter community people specifically, though there's tons of examples of bigotry like the school principal getting sued for discrimination due to a kid's hair (black hair).
We know Lemmy is a bit more populated with left than right thinkers, but regardless, what's going on in these western plains states? Is it as bad as it looks?
Do you personally know some sweet old church ladies who 'hate the gays because they'll going to hell' or are there just more extreme law makers being elected that don't represent the majority?
EDIT: tried to fix link to a conversation instead of a login page.
South Dakota here. I typed out a long reply several times, but I don't know how to explain it.
Our governor is obviously an extremist, fully subscribing to the concept of a "border crisis," anti-LGBTQIA+ policies, being so overtly racist that she's banned from three reservations.
I'm a "redneck" looking cis male, and people will share with me their opinions, thinking I'll agree. These people don't think people like Noem and Trump go far enough. It's actually important to understand that even the "nice church people" types believe this. They support much more extreme policies than what we're seeing.
Edit: I forgot to say this, but this is only responding to the contents of your post. Your link takes me to the kbin login page.
crap, I'll fix it, hold on. It was supposed to be someone speaking of their oppression. Edit, I think I got the link right. It opened in a different browser for me this time.