Much of what has been said regarding Blue Laws. I’ll also add the inability to see decent adult shows like The Sopranos on network television.
I work in a casino and our industry is very restricted for private owners. We can’t have slot machines and we can’t extend credit or raise table maximums above $200 for reasons I can only assume involve “public safety.” This makes it extremely difficult to attract big action. Especially with reservation casinos in the area.
If I was a smoker, you can no longer smoke in public facilities in WA state either (though that’s been a GODSEND at work).
If it weren’t for religion my partner and I would be married. And I can’t help wondering whether more stem cell research would result in a cure for my diabetes.
I don’t think it affects my life at all, really, at least personally. We don’t have blue laws in Michigan, as far as I know, and I’m a student in a fairly liberal university town where religion doesn’t seem to be a big presence. I have never bothered to hide my atheism and no one here has been noticeably shocked by it, when it’s come up.
More of my friends/acquaintances are atheist/agnostic/only nominally some religion than actively practicing believers, by a large margin. But this is no doubt a result of the way I have arranged my life. I’m sure I could immerse myself in a religious community without leaving Ann Arbor. (Although my friends would probably stage an intervention, just because it would be so wildly out of character for me.)
I’m not Karyn and I don’t know where she lives, but I’m betting it can’t be too far from where I went to college, Santa Cruz, CA, a new age woo woo hotspot. The city council was always wasting their time doing weird/useless crap, like drafting resolutions that they disapproved of the Chinese invasion of Tibet or banning hate or allowing sleeping on the street. (This last one set off a nationwide migration of homeless people toward Santa Cruz. Which already has a huge homelessness problem, totally disproportionate for a town of 60,000 people.)