Unless things have changed greatly since I moved, it won’t quite be like that.
Instead of rocks thrown through your window, a friendly and polite welcome wagon will arrive. They’ll bring a fruit or muffin basket. They will explain politely and without raising their voices that your kind is not welcome here. After they leave, you’ll find numerous Chick tracts in your house.
Oy.
I’m sure it would be fruit 
.
Question from the Tragically-Ill-Informed Dept: What’s a “Chick tract”?
Jack Chick is one of two things-
A great comedian with the ability to tell a very subtle joke and keep a straight face for decades.
Or
A hate-filled man worshipping a hate-filled deity.
Either way, he publishes (sometimes also illustrating or writing) little comic books expressing his views-the Pope is the antiChrist, there’s a gay conspiracy to convert children and infect blood banks with HIV, the Mason’s are actually devil worshippers, Dungeons & Dragons is not a game for geeks but a tool to lead kids to black magic and Satan, all things New Age are just Satan in disguise, all Jews will burn in Hell unless they accept Jesus, Islam actually worships an ancient moongod, The earth is only 5000 years old and was created in 6 days, all Jehovah’s Witnesses are serving a secret cult and will burn in hell, The King James Bible is the only accurate translation all others have been interfered with by demons.
While Front Royal is in the Northern section of Virginia, it is by no means part of “NoVa/Northern Virginia” which is a term usually applied to the expansive and depressing DC suburbs. Front Royal is located at the Northern tip of the lovely Shenandoah National Park and is more or less “in the middle of nowhere.” It must be about 100 miles to DC (through some of the worst traffic in the US) and faaar from anything else that could be called a major city.
The closest Interstate highways are 66 and 81, it is very close to the borders of W. Virginia, Maryland and even Pennsylvania (MD being very narrow at that point.)
Have you considered moving someplace (perhaps Culpeper area) that would allow you to commute to someplace like Charlotteseville while your GF goes to Front Royal to work? (Now, Culpeper makes Front Royal look like Manhattan at Rush hour but its right pretty.) Actually living in C-Ville would be out of the question, but perhaps you could split the difference.
Sorry that got rambly. My point is I think you should turn your sights AWAY from DC and TOWARDS Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia, and a shining beacon of (comparative) liberalism in central VA. You could live in any number of adorable small towns along Shanandoah Nat’l Park’s eastern edge and skip the DC commute.
Culpeper VA is just about the midpoint between Cville & FP. I have a friend that has a horse farm there.
I live in Charlottesville, and it is a (somewhat-)shining beacon of neo -liberalism, almost to the point of yuppieism. Let’s just make that clear. If you’re looking to escape from the depressing suburbia that is NoVA, you will find little refuge in C-Ville, for sprawl is rampant and unchecked, and land values are going through the roof. In a few years, we’ll probably look exactly like NoVA.
That said, Charlottesville is a decent place to be in Central VA. Good shopping, great culture, and an great number of distractions. It also has the distinction of being one of the few Democrat havens to exist in VA. Three Democrats just got elected to the city council, in fact. Depending on what field you’re in, finding work might be a problem.
Regarding the House bill: Doesn’t surprise me one bit. I used to do interviewing for political polls for Democrat candidates in Virginia, and one of the people they were running against opposed abortion even when the mother’s life was threatened. That still doesn’t make it morally right, and it may be unconstitutional, in my opinion.
Regarding the GOP’s grip on VA: The GOP has VA by the balls. Bush won VA in 2000 by over 200,000 votes, equal to the population of Norfolk, Virginia’s biggest city. Virginia has voted Republican since Reconstruction. I seriously doubt that’s going to change.
This accurately reflects modern politics, but demonstrates an amazing ignorance of history.
Andros-X, Reconstruction was forced upon the defeated South by radical Northern Republicans. It was resisted by segregationist Southern Democrats, who held a monopoly on political power in the South, including Virginia, until the last few decades.
Considering that Lincoln was a Republican, no self respecting Virginian would have been a registered Republican in the first half of the twentieth century.
Ah, yes, the Great Racist Migration, when the Democratic party shrugged off its troglodytes and the Republican party subsequently welcomed them with open arms.
Damn straight. Just like they did with miscegenation and segregation, not to mention slavery and suffrage.
Senator Byrd would like a word with you, I bet.
Because everyone knows that a single counter-example invalidates the notion that the Democrat and Republican parties have reversed their historical bases…
Tool.
Tack that fine example of upstanding humanity, Mssr. Byrd, onto the same list as Al Sharpton (of Tawana Brawley fame), Cynthia Mckinney (or did the Jews make me say that?). And so forth. Are you really so stupid as to think that the Democrats are without racists in their ranks, or that the number of them is insignificant?
Your confirmation of my assessment of your tooldom is much appreciated.
Yes, there are racists who identify as Democrats. That there are racists who identify as Democrats still doesn’t change the basic point, which is that the historical bases of the two major parties have switched.
I’m really not sure why you’re so hung up about not acknowledging a simple historical fact. Are you really so invested in it?
Well, it is a historic fact. But it didn’t come about the way some people think.
The South became more Republican as it became less racist. The firat areas to go Republican were those states, like Virginia, in border areas, or ones, like Florida, with lots of migrants from the North.
The states of entrenched Jim Crow, like Mississippi and Alabama, also turned out to be the states with the most entrenched Democratic Party.
Hello Again writes:
> My point is I think you should turn your sights AWAY from DC and TOWARDS
> Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia, and a shining beacon of
> (comparative) liberalism in central VA.
This is all very nice, but the reason that none of us suggested it before was that jellyblue was complaining that she and her partner didn’t want to live in Virginia because of a law there that would screw up any contractual relationships between the two of them. Yes, Charlottesville is, like Northern Virginia, a moderately liberal sort of place in its attitudes. But it’s still in Virginia and the Virginia state laws would apply there. That’s why we we suggested living in the D.C. suburbs, in Frederick, or in West Virginia. Living in Charlottesville or in Northern Virginia might help jellyblue and her partner by allowing them to live in an area with reasonably liberal attitudes, but that wasn’t the question that jellyblue originally asked.
Incidentally, jellyblue, it occurs to me that you might not know what the term “Northern Virginia” means. It does not mean the northern half of Virginia. It means the Virginia suburbs of Washington, all within no more than 50 miles of D.C.
Also, Front Royal is 60 miles from D.C., not 100. I suspect that some people there do commute to or from D.C., even if it is 90 minutes each way. I still think the best solution for jellyblue and her partner, if they wish to live some place not within the bounds of the Virginia law they wish to avoid, is to live in Frederick, Maryland. The commute for her partner would be no more than an hour. jellyblue’s commute would be no more than an hour, depending where between Frederick and the D.C. suburbs she could find a job.
Andros, the Republican Party carried VA in 1872 (the first election after Reconstruction), but then lost each election in VA up until 1928 (Hoover carried the state over Al Smith). They then again won in '52, '56, and and '60. The GOP has also carried the state in each election since. To say that the Virginians have voted Republican since Reconstruction isn’t true.
The Republican Party fared even worse in state-wide elections. The Republicans didn’t have a majority in either the House of Delegates or the Senate from Reconstruction 'til the last decade of the 20th Century. The Byrd Machine in VA was completely unstoppable, for the most part. The fact is that the GOP wasn’t a factor in VA politics (at least at the state level) for more than 100 years, and they show serious signs of fracture now. This year’s budget debate really showed the cracks in their usually united front. The moderates managed to pass a tax increase and generally sided with the Democratic Governor on quite a few issues.
Sorry, LBJ carried the Commonwealth in 1964. After that VA has been a solidly Republican state in Presidential elections.
What? You mean you’ve never been informed about the horrible sins you’re commiting as a homosexual?
(Sorry, Chick dosen’t seem to have a lesbian themed tract yet. Hmmm. Maybe the idea of 2 women turns him on. :rolleyes: )
Doc Cathode, thanks for the info. See? Fighting Ignorance!
Bsane, Hello Again and Andros X, thanks for all the input. I’m going to send the link for this thread to my partner, since she’s actually been there, but I think I’m going to have to buy a big map and check out exactly where all these places are - it’s too hard to get a sense on Mapquest. She’s back now. They* did* offer her the job, but we haven’t gotten a chance to talk about it yet. And she caught a cold (see? people get sick there! we’re not going!) so she’s not up for any discussions at the moment. I swear, I’m going to lose 20 lbs. worrying about this! It feels like a pretty impossible situation.
Wendall Wagner, thanks for the clarification. I would like to check out alternatives to VA because I don’t want to sell a house that I own half of here and put the equity into - I don’t know what. Her house, I guess. She gets better rates on loans (vet). And morally, I’m just astonished. I imagine the VA homohostiles are all breathing a sigh of relief after watching news out of MA yesterday: “Yep, dodged the bullet on that one!” Yes, folks, it certainly will keep things - insular. :rolleyes:
Good Goddess, no! I guess none have wended their slimey little way down here to SoCA. That’s fucking awful! :eek: Thanks for the link, though.
Maybe I should whip up a little illustration of your last sig line and make that available to the depraved public 
. That could make for quite the graphic novel…(how were you picturing this “rough trick” exactly?)