In my childhood, my family attended a mainline Protestant church. ... Our minister openly opposed the Viet Nam war and made it clear that racism was "shameful". Mom and Dad were vocal Democrats. Mom was civil servant and Dad was a union member and precinct Committeeman. I grew up a liberal protestant.
Years later, in another town, I walked out of a church of that same denomination after years of attendance and have never returned. I began to understand that I was no longer truly welcome in those pews when I started hearing all of the anti-Clinton nonsense in the pre-service chatter around us. A couple of times when I or Mrs. A mentioned that we were Democrats, people remarked that they were shocked because we "seemed like good people". 1.
Then, in quick succession, two events occurred which "broke the camel's back". First, a woman ( who I later learned packed a pistol 2.) posted an announcement in the church bulletin urging all "good Christian parents" to be sure their kids were present at a "Rally Round the Flag" anti-abortion event 3. at their school before classes started. Then, when the son of a church member and his male fiance appeared in church to announce their engagement, the whole family was embarrassed by the reactions of several of the "good Christians" present 4..
1. Some of this is pretty dubious. Pre-service chatter? Not likely, since people tend to be more occupied with things like dropping off kids in Sunday School or settling in where they are sitting. If "anti-Clinton" comments put off
Flatus, maybe he should have realized that politics were too dominant in his life. The realization that Clinton's history of sexual antics and assaults and doing Monica in the Oval Office might get strongly negative reactions among people with strong moral beliefs seems to have eluded
Flatus.
2. She was able to defend herself from a potentially deadly attack? Shocking! I guess
Flatus wasn't listening when the congregation's pastor read Jesus' instructions to His disciples shortly before His death ... the part about carrying necessaries that even included a current technology weapon (a sword).
3. See You at the Pole (the correct name of the event) is not a specifically Pro-Life or "anti-abortion event". Not that facts matter to a DU-member like
Flatus.
4. Acceptance of same-sex marriage among mainline Protestants is actually fairly recent, has caused splits among several (e.g. Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and the one liberal Lutheran denomination), and the relatively liberal American Baptist Church still teaches that homosexual activity is incompatible with Scripture. With that as the context in which this happened
(if it happened), the announcement of the "engagement" probably was an intentionally provocative act, and I doubt
Flatus was so clueless as to be surprised by the less than positive reactions.
There may be a few factual elements in
Flatus' anti-church

, but many/most key elements are fictional or examples of
Flatus being clueless about the people and beliefs in that church
(or maybe Flatus embellished/lied for his DU-audience?).