All states are not created equal.

Here's how. Tolerance is usually the result of exposure to vastly disparate types of individuals. This comes with urban centers. Big cities foster a certain amount of tolerance--especially religious tolerance.

California's population is the result of urban sprawl. All the secondary counties are filled with overflow and refugees from the cities and thus their tolerance goes with them. On the east coast and the mid-west we see rural regions that have always been rural and are not populated solely by urban sprawl.

Rural regions with residents who for generations have had no parents or peers with urban exposure are simply less tolerant & generally less educated.

Ignorant regions are generally conservative by default. They aren't equipped to adapt to change. This does not and should not damn conservative thought though. Criminals and perverts are by default liberal and this should not be held against liberal thought either.

When dealing with places like Kansas, one has to take these very limited social interactions into account. For many of these folks religion is their sole social contact and the church exerts a quasi-cultlike power over the region and subsequently has great control over the politics of the region.

It's all about knowledge. Knowledge can be acquired by books. But interaction with many varied peoples builds experience and tolerance.

Eventually, especially as our borders fail, these regions that are isolated will eventually be urbanized as well. In fifty years finding these pockets whether they be in rural Pennsylvania, Kansas or wherever will become much scarcer.

I think Tom realizes that the decks are stacked almost completely against creationists in the long term projection and those with little education/experience/tolerance. And this is why he's not pulling his hair out.

You may be looking at the issue from the eye of the storm and see the maelstrom in all its fury, but from the satellite view one see's it's just a localized anomaly and will pass soon enough.

SDAI-Tech1